


Demon's Tears

by Nehasy



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: Cannibalism, Harsh Language, Post Apocalypse, extreme poverty, extreme violence, future earth, general nastiness, rage zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 21:04:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11517447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehasy/pseuds/Nehasy
Summary: In the far future, humanity struggles for life in a single sprawling city lost in a barren radioactive wasteland.  The military lurks in every corner, protecting and oppressing the people on the orders of the elite Citizens and the all powerful Overseer.  Kyan, a former street urchin turned military dog is sent with his team to guard an elite politician travelling through the worst district in the city, a district he once called home and swore never to return to.  As if being surrounded by the claustrophobic undercity of the Narrows wasn't bad enough, the team realizes all too soon that someone wants to ruin the politician's publicity tour... and they plan to do so using the most horrific weapon the Narrows has to offer.  Now Kyan and his team have to stay alive, keep the politician safe and somehow not tip off the press that all hell is about to break loose.Home certainly is where the heart is...and the Narrows will tear it right out through your rib cage if you're not careful.  Welcome to Fox Vegas.





	Demon's Tears

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is an original story full of fun original characters! I enjoy stories of bleak dystopian futures and Fox Vegas is a poster city for that. Quick run down on the world, this is 1000 years in the future after a massive nuclear war rendered almost all life on the planet extinct. A small pocket of humanity managed to survive nestled by the edge of the Rocky Mountains in Canada and over time the city has grown into a massive metropolis housing millions of people all tightly packed together and fighting over the sparse resources. Technology is a mix of high end futuristic tech and almost archaic devices, depending on where you live and how wealthy you are. The citadels stand over a mile high and are a paradise for the wealthy. They alone enjoy the technological marvels of the world while the majority of the population struggle for life in their shadow.   
> Fox Vegas is a bastion for the best and the worst of humanity and it's poised on the brink of annihilation. The question is what will destroy it first? The growing restlessness of the populace? The greed of the politicans? The dwindling resources or a much greater threat growing quietly in the shadows over the centuries?

As the tip of the swords blade passed by less than a centimeter from my face I could hear the soft hiss of it slicing through the air. The harsh lights surrounding us flashed along its keen edge, causing spots to dance in front of my eyes. She’d done that on purpose and I threw myself backwards, rolling over neatly even as I took aim with my guns. There was the softest sound of her foot scuffing on the floor but that was enough for me to orient myself and I fired both weapons. One missed, I could hear the bullet striking the far wall but the other struck flesh, catching her even as she advanced on me. Good, that paid her back for the slice she’d given me along my arm at the start of this fight.  
Righting myself but staying in a low crouch, I quickly scanned the room for my adversary but didn’t see her. She’d been quick to take advantage of my roll but I wasn’t going to complain seeing as how in close combat, the advantage was clearly hers.   
Sun Yin might be the only person I knew of who would dare to bring a sword to a gun fight, but she was a force of nature with that hunk of metal and I wasn’t about to underestimate her. I’d seen what happened to anyone stupid enough to make that mistake.  
There weren’t that many places where she could use the cover effectively but I wasn’t going to take any chances. My ribs still ached from when she’d knocked me out of my little perch up in the rafters, neatly stripping me of my biggest advantage. I hated fighting face to face and she knew it. Always the tactician, she was controlling the environment and I wasn’t appreciating it one bit. Placing my back to one of the four pillars in the room, I tried to focus my senses on the space around me. Listen, become one with the world and all that drek. I’d mock it more if it didn’t actually seem to work for me. Of course, it tended to work better when I wasn’t facing someone trained to basically be Death’s little sister.  
A movement off to the side caught my attention and I spun around and fired. The drone never stood a chance and it sputtered and sparked as the bullet broke something vital inside of it. The monitoring lights just above its many circular lenses flickered then went out just as the expensive piece of hardware crashed to the floor. Hissing softly at my gullibility, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise up and pivoted just in time to see her step out behind the very panel I’d been using for protection. It figured.  
Moving with a pure economy of movement, her lithe body darted forward before I could even take proper aim. That serene face of hers was perfectly composed, revealing no emotion at all. Everything had a purpose with her and even the faintest flicker of a dark eyelash could hold a great weight of meaning. Right now, that meaning said “Kill”.   
Ever the opposite, I could feel a wide grin of utter enjoyment splitting my face in half even as I desperately twisted to the side. My left arm swung out, knocking hers aside with a glancing blow. Metal hissed through air once again only this time it took a rather sizeable chunk of my shirt with it. Honed to a razor fine edge, I couldn’t feel if the steel of her blade kissed my flesh and likely wouldn’t until I saw blood.   
So long as nothing vital was cut, that was all I cared about and before she could fully recover from the near miss, I fired with my other gun. There was a certain level of satisfaction in seeing that bright flash of crimson blossom on the bicep of her right arm and she stumbled from the pain but unfortunately didn’t drop her sword. It wasn’t a lethal blow but it would serve to slow down her attacks and remind her that just because she held the advantage of position didn’t mean that I was without my teeth.   
Rather than press her attack, she stepped back, glancing first at the downed drone and then at her wound. Dark almond shaped eyes narrowed and there was the briefest flash of disgust across her fine well-bred features though I wasn’t sure if it was aimed at me, for killing the drone or her for being injured.   
“You had an opening and you failed to take it.” I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else to pass her lips. This was training after all and Sun Yin took training as seriously as she did every other aspect of her life. Nothing less than absolute perfection was deemed to be acceptable to her. Even the way she spoke, with that precise yet musical Fushian accent said volumes about her. Not only was it absolutely exotic to someone like me, it told of a world above the clouds filled with scented gardens, beautiful music and luxuries I couldn’t even imagine.  
She was a Citizen, Citadel born and bred. It showed in every aspect of her being, from her perfectly sculpted features, her creamy pale skin with just the faintest hint of gold and the mind numbingly ornate tattoo which covered most of her body. The way she moved and spoke commanded attention without effort and I’d seen her intimidate men twice her size with a simple stare. “Why would you accept failure?” The toe of her boot nudged the downed drone. It sparked feebly for a moment, garbled readouts flashing across one of its tiny screens before permanently blacking out, reducing the little technological marvel to junk.  
“I ain’t no slad.” I stated matter of factly, my gun never wavering from her. Call me paranoid but she hadn’t sheathed that sword of hers and I was getting tired of bleeding. “Ghosting my brother’s dem like some baku heavy? Nah, I gotta make it all shine!” We were utter opposites on the social scale and it couldn’t be any clearer than when I opened my mouth to speak. Where her words were full of high culture and education, I spoke with the thick gutter slang accent of the Narrows. She was one of the rulers of our glorious city and I was Naz, the lowest form of street scum you could scrape out of the gutter and still call human. In fact, several people had their doubts about even calling me that. For some reason though, Sun Yin wasn’t one of them and against all social order was taking the time to not only try to civilize me, but to teach me the ways of Fuschian culture.   
It was pretty much the biggest joke in the barracks; the princess taming the wild beast. Had I not been the latter of that pair, I’m sure I’d have been laughing along with everyone else. Still, whenever she looked at me, I had the feeling that she was seeing something better than some scrawny little gutter slip and it made me want to impress her. Had we met anywhere else, I’d have been killed for just looking at her the wrong way so I took a certain amount of perverse delight in putting a bullet or two into this shining icon of human perfection. Yes, I had issues, I’m fully aware of them.   
“I assure you that my relationship with your brother is of no import in regards to this battle.” She liked the big words, it was common trait among Citizens no matter which Citadel they called home. It was a verbal line drawn in the dirt, the perpetual Us against Them and they just couldn’t resist showing off their superiority.  
There were forty Citadels in all inside of the sprawling pocket of civilization we called Fox Vegas. Their topmost layers reached up above the toxic clouds which choked out planet, granting the Citizens fresh clean air in abundance.   
I’d never seen the tops of the Citadels, but I’d heard that they were vast multi-layered paradises, each one more beautiful than the next. They had proper radiation shielding, stayed cool in the summer and warm in the winter. There was always food to be found there, real food and not the refuse which trickled down to the dark dank pits of scum where I’d grown up.   
There were ten sectors in all, each one separated by massive kilometer thick walls which had been erected long ago during the Wars. Back then, sector had fought sector for the dwindling resources of the planet, plunging the city into a constant state of chaos and death. We were the last of humanity and Fox Vegas was our final refuge. Protected by the towering walls which sealed us away from the outer world, the city had eventually become our prison. Our ancestors had looked at the softly glowing shields they’d built to keep the elements at bay, the unbreachable walls and dwindling resources and seen their death. Panicking, they’d fought to preserve their ways of life and in doing so had nearly lost it all.  
I wasn’t all educated or anything so I didn’t know what exactly had happened, but in the midst of all the chaos, a leader had risen up and united the sectors. Trade, treaties and alliances were created and each sector retained a certain level of cultural identity which shaped their laws and the lives of their citizens. Though each sector was quite unique, they each had certain similarities as well.   
Firstly were the Citizens, they were the elite. Born into the beautiful clean worlds of the Citadels, most of them rarely ever ventured out from their shining towers and when they did, it usually never boded well for the rest of us. They grew up with plentiful food, education and had all of the best medicine and technology. As a result, they were often taller and stronger than the rest of us; their skin even seemed to have this beautiful inner glow of health which drew the eye constantly.  
Civilians made up the bulk of the population, living the sprawling districts between the Citadels. They were the working class, living in the shadows of their betters and dreaming of better lives. Still, their lot wasn’t too bad. There was mandatory education, edible food and if they were lucky, some of them got to live rich and comfortable lives. Not many, but enough to keep the rest in line.  
Beneath them were the rest of us… the Naz. We were the human garbage the rest of the city tried to forget. Bottom feeders, criminals and general wastes of protein. Every sector had us and every sector did their best to pretend we didn’t exist.   
The other thing they had in common with each other was the Overseer. Every ten years, each district nominated a candidate for the position and the Citizens voted. Now naturally, each district wanted their own representative to win, so competition was rather cutthroat, reminding us all that while the War was “officially” over, it had simply moved to a more subtle playing field.  
“When you attack me, you must do so without hesitation and without foolishness.” Sun Yin continued, nudging the drone once again to add emphasis to the last word. “Each bullet you fire must have a purpose or it is simply a wasted effort.”  
“Yeah yeah.” I grumbled more to myself than her. “I meant to ghost the drone. Didn’t like how it put the eyes to me.” Those dark eyes narrowed once again and I knew that my humour hadn’t been appreciated. “I ken your tell. Next shot will end it. I promise.” My smile grew wide again as she nodded slightly and deepened her stance. “Ready to be ghosted?”   
“We are all born ready to die.” Fushians… they were all crazy. Sometimes I wondered why I wanted to learn their ways. Rather than waste time thinking about whether that was an actual attempt at humour, I instead dropped to the floor and twisted sharply. My leg swung out at her ankle, hoping to sweep her off balance. Ready as always, she nimbly leaped back, the faintest hint of a smile touching her lips.   
Witty commentary aside, I’d expected her move and before she landed I’d already taken aim and fired. One bullet went wide while the other was knocked aside by a simple flick of her blade. She was the only person I’d ever heard of who could pull off that stunt and it never ceased to impress me. “Better.” The approval in her voice made her words glow. “But you are nearly out of ammunition.” Great, a bullet counter. I hated those.  
Having failed in my attack, I was now far too close to her for my own good and she wasted no time in moving in for the kill. With unerring skill, her sword found the back of my hand and this time I felt it as she drew a line of white fire across my flesh. Blood stood out sharply against the warm tan of my skin and my gun fell from nerveless fingers. Well, I’d never really been one for an honest fight and without a pause; I flicked my injured hand at her. Bright crimson drops flew through the air, splashing against her face and causing her to blink her eyes. It wasn’t much of an opening but I was all too happy to take it.  
Her sword swung up and I felt it tap lightly at my throat, stopping just short of drawing blood. At the same moment, my own arm raised and I pulled the trigger on my gun, shooting her in the chest. Hers was an empty victory but least this time I was rewarded with a soft grunt of pain and a grim smile of respect.  
“So we follow each other into death.” Drawing back, she gave her sword a neat little flick before sheathing it and bowing politely. The movement nicely covered the disgust she was likely feeling at having allowed me the chance to fire. Bowing respectfully in return, I couldn’t help but take some pride in seeing the blood spreading across the front of her shirt.   
She’d have an impressive bruise there but had taken no lasting damage. My bullets were special training rounds designed to break the first few layers of skin. They hurt enough to serve as a rather firm reminder to never drop one’s guard but did little else. I wasn’t allowed to play with live ammo in training anymore.   
“You’ve improved.” She added, pulling down the edge of her shirt to check the wound. I had a clear view of the elaborate series of tattoos emblazoned across her skin as well as a good portion of her left breast but I only had eyes for my handiwork. “I would have died almost instantly.” A nice warm glow of pride filled me at her words of praise. It was one thing to have my brother tell me I’d done a good job. Hells, he would tell me that if I tied my shoes right. Getting a compliment from Sun Yin was special.   
“Still ghosted though.” I couldn’t help but give my neck a little rub, checking for blood. As expected, her control had been perfect and not a drop had been spilled. The same couldn’t be said for my hand however and it was bleeding rather steadily onto the floor. At least the pain had faded after that initial sting. “Next time I’ll stay back.”   
The wound was negligible to me, I’d received far worse regularly over the course of my training, not to mention what I’d survived on actual missions. It was a safe bet that there wasn’t a body part of mine that didn’t have some sort of scar on it which either said that I was incredibly tough… or really unlucky. The scars were a common sight for someone of my profession more so than any of the others. Scouts had the highest turnover rate in the entire military and we seemed to always be finding new and unique ways to get killed. So far I’d come through with my skin mostly intact but I never kidded myself that somewhere there was either a bullet or a trap with my name on it.  
As the Scout for Phantom Squad, it was my job to sneak ahead into hostile areas and gather up what recon I could. There was also the added bonus of removing any targets of opportunity I could and removing traps for the rest of the team. If I was doing my job right and luck was with me, no one would even know I was there. When luck wasn’t with me… well, that’s when I got the scars.  
Oddly, I loved the job despite the risk… and if I was being wholly honest, perhaps because of it. I was perfect for it and I often joked that I’d been pretty much born for this. Maybe fate had somehow had a hand in this and my life had simply been a harsh training ground or some drek like that.   
Growing up without proper food and medicine had left me with a somewhat underdeveloped frame. I was short and scrawny to put it mildly and if I took a deep breath, I barely reached the five foot mark on my height. We won’t even go into my weight, it’s embarrassing. For years I’d held onto this stupid dream of one day filling out the way Jade, my brother had, but I’d finally come to accept that this was never going to happen. I was doomed to spend my life looking like some scrawny little child whose brilliant blue eyes seemed to be far too old for their face. No one ever took me seriously unless I was armed but it had been even worse in the Narrows. Back there, being small and weak meant you were prey. All you could do was hide from everything bigger than you and hope to never be noticed. Unfortunately with eyes like mine, bright and rarer than the freshly polished jewels they resembled, I seemed to draw attention like a magnet… bad attention.   
The others didn’t really understand what it was like to live your entire life in a constant state of fear, knowing that you were never safe. Not even Jade understood even a fraction of what I’d endured, and he’d been there since our mother pushed my bloody newborn self into his arms before stumbling back out into the streets, leaving us forever.   
If it hadn’t been for him, I’d have died a thousand times over, but he couldn’t always be there to protect me. For him, a few good punches had always solved any problems the Narrows could throw at him. For me? Fighting had never been an option until the Military had put a gun in my hand. The first time I’d felt its deadly weight, I knew that the rules of the world had changed. In my hands was the ultimate equalizer and now there was a wealth of possibilities opening up for me. Finally I could fight back… now I could kill.   
It turned out that I was very good at killing and the idea of ending another person’s life didn’t bother me in the slightest. The others didn’t understand the validation I felt, how it proved to me my right to exist and stand tall in this savage world. They called me a sociopath and it seemed that the military was in agreement with them. It hadn’t been long before I was under orders to spend a portion of every downtime speaking to my own personally assigned psychiatrist. I even had these special meds which were supposed to “keep me calm”. I hated taking them, they made me feel weak, but if I refused I’d be taken off of active duty.  
I wasn’t crazy though. If only I could make them all see that. What I was, was a survivor and if I had to choose between myself and some stranger getting hurt, I’d pick the stranger every time.   
“We should take you to the med bay for your hand.” Sun Yin’s smooth voice pulled me out of my little reverie and I glanced down at the hand which was still bleeding impressively on the nice floor. A boxy little cleaning drone was sitting at the edge of the growing puddle, waiting less than patiently for me to stop making a mess so it could begin tidying up. Its back was bristling with nozzles of disinfectants, wipes and what not. I knew that samples of my blood would be analyzed and put on my file with all of the others. We had no secrets or privacy here; you either accepted that or went mad. “I believe that I severed two of your tendons.” She didn’t sound overly apologetic and I appreciated that. Being coddled was one of the quickest ways to get my back up and she knew it.   
Instead, she took my gun from my uninjured hand and quickly disassembled it and returned it to its case. This was done with its mate as well and the cases were placed in their appropriate bin against the wall. Her sword followed suit though she released it with obvious reluctance.  
Rather than stare at her, I instead focused on resisting the urge to kick the little drone away in disgust as it edged towards the blood and instead opted to glare at it menacingly. One damaged drone was enough for the day and I didn’t feel like getting written up… again. Still, having these little things scooting around like metallic rats always disturbed me. No matter how much tech surrounded me, I was likely never going to be wholly comfortable with it.   
Taking a pristine white cloth out of her pant pocket, Sun Yin stepped forward and wrapped it around my wound, helping to staunch the blood enough that I wasn’t going to make puddles wherever I went. As she tightened it snugly against my skin, I took a moment to marvel at the whole lack of pain. It made it easy to pretend that I was fine, though one glance at the rapidly reddening cloth warned otherwise. If it was taken away, I’d likely be able to see all the nifty moving parts which lay beneath my skin. That was never a good thing no matter how often I saw it.  
Rather than be upset over the injury, I instead brightened visibly at the prospect of seeing the doctors. Well, one doctor in particular. Suddenly being covered in nifty new wounds didn’t seem like a bad thing at all and a delighted smile spread across my lips.  
“Is Powder on duty?” I sounded just a little too hopeful and earned myself a slightly raised eyebrow from my teammate as she nudged me none too gently towards the door, allowing the little drone to finally begin its job of cleaning up after us.   
“Must you persist in calling him that?” There was no point in replying, we both knew the answer. Powder’s real name was Lucious Aurillius and his call sign was actually Templar, but no one called him that anymore, much to his chagrin.   
He was the other Citizen in our squad and had the dubious honour of being the first one I’d ever seen. On our first day of training, I’d stared at him in utter shock with my jaw hanging open as I struggled to take in his alien appearance. With his flawless powder white skin glowing with health, shining gold hair and sky blue eyes, he didn’t even look human to me. What he’d been was something out of a story, some clean pristine creature too beautiful to walk on the same ground as us filthy mortals.   
Most people in Fox Vegas had skin which was a variation of tan to deep brown with dark hair and eyes. My own bright blue eyes labelled me as a genetic freak though the rest of my colouration was within the norm. Someone had once explained to me that the people of Fox Vegas had a mingled gene pool which created the common colours. Add in the constant exposure to the elements as well as the radiation which baked us from our first days to our deaths and I suppose it wasn’t that surprising. Of course, less than charitable people, namely Citizens, liked to joke that our darker colouring was because of lack of hygiene. It was comments like that which were part of why I wasn’t allowed to carry live ammo… or any weapons when not in the field.  
People like Sun Yin and Powder simply didn’t appear in the Narrows and were even considered to be rare anywhere except in the highest levels of the Citadels where they kept the old bloodlines pure. While I’d never met them, apparently Powder’s whole family shared his colouring, though the golden white hair was rare even amongst the Citizens. Despite our similar ages, he towered over me, radiating strength and health, always glowing with cleanliness. No matter how many times I washed, I would never achieve that.  
He also didn’t have a single scar marring the perfection of his flesh and I had to admit that it fascinated me. I’d been caught staring in the showers on more than one occasion, making both of us uncomfortable. Naturally, I’d always covered it up with lewd comments and innuendo, but more than one member of the squad had noticed my rather pathetic attempts of obfuscation. Thankfully, Powder was innocent enough to simply see it all as just another one of my strange quirks.   
My crush on him was pretty much an open secret at this point and the only one ignorant to my staring eyes was him. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic, but I suppose I could do worse. He was untouchable and I knew it down to my very bones. That made him safe and I found myself relaxing in his presence almost as much as with Sun Yin. Odd that I enjoyed the company of people I had no way of relating to. I’m sure my psychiatrist would have something pompous and long winded to say about that.  
While he was easily the most brilliant in our squad, he was also the most innocent by far and had grown up in a soft and safe world, far away from any problems which might cause him a moment’s discomfort. I sort of liked that about him, the way that everything was new and fresh to him. It made me take a moment to look around and try to see things from a different perspective. I rarely succeeded, but the effort was there.   
By some twist of fate, he’d ended up being the medic assigned to Phantom Squad, my squad. As a result, he lived with us, trained with us and at times even bled with us. As our training progressed and grew more hazardous, he seemed to have become my own personal physician. It was hardly a surprise really seeing as how I had an uncanny skill for attracting bullets, knives and the odd bit of shrapnel from bombs. Remember what I said about scouts being rather short lived? He’d put me back together more times than I could count and Jade occasionally joked that I would happily walk into a bullet if it meant that Powder would be the one to remove it.  
“You shouldn’t tease him as much as you do, it’s disrespectful.” Sun Yin continued, still smirking slightly as she noticed that my walk had become just that little bit faster than usual. “He’s educated and he works hard to keep you fit for duty.”   
“I work hard to keep him employed.” I replied with a shrug, playing at being utterly uninterested in the conversation and failing badly. Chuckling softly to myself, I fondly pictured his look of horror the last time I’d eaten a bug in front of him or how he’d nearly vomited when I’d offered to share the other one I’d caught. He was so much fun to tease and I did so mercilessly. Citizens, I’d say that they were all soft and weak, but I knew that if I offered Sun Yin a bug to eat, she’d take it and devour that sucker with the blandest expression you could imagine before calmly asking me if that was supposed to prove something to me.  
Both of us were such regular fixtures in the med bay that we not only knew our way around by heart, no one bothered to question us. Really, at this point we should have had our own personal rooms and round the clock staff. Granted, that might not be a good thing.   
Though the med bay was worse than a back alley maze, habit led us straight to the room where good old Doctor Powder was filling out some charts. Sun Yin walked in nonchalantly but I took a moment to stare, enjoying how he studied the charts in his hand so intently before glancing up. With expert efficiency, those sky blue eyes of his immediately fixed on my bloody hand and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly with the hint of a smile.   
“Stealing off someone’s tray in the mess hall again?” His voice was as smooth and cultured as Sun Yin’s though his accent was clearly from the Rommell Citadel. Striding into the room with exaggerated casualness, I flipped him a rather rude gesture with my good hand, earning myself a dark look from Sun Yin.  
“Ain’t nobody putting the eyes to me when I light something.” I replied primly, fully aware that he would only understand half of what I said. Since meeting me, he’d been regularly exposed to Narrows Speak had could catch enough words to get by, making him one of the very few Citizens with that dubious honour. “Sun Yin tagged me while we were in the heavy. But I gave her a bit of the joy too. Check it.” My grin was full of pride as I pointed towards her chest. By now, the red stain against her breast was the size of credit chip. Powder glanced for only a second before quickly looking away, his cheeks turning a ruddy shade of pink.   
Honestly, you’d think he’d never seen a woman’s tits before. For me, growing up in a cramped two room apartment shared with another family and a group of whores, I was about as familiar with the human body as one could get. In fact, Miss Dalia and her girls were one of the few things I missed about the Narrows. They’d been nice to me which was a rare thing in and of itself and they’d always had some good stories to tell. Miss Dalia herself had taken care of me once when I’d contracted a nearly fatal fever as a child, likely saving my life. As for the other family… nausea made my stomach churn at the very thought of those vermin and I did my best to push those sickening memories from my mind.  
“Let’s see the hand.” Powder directed in a wonderfully professional manner as he motioned for me to place it on the table while he gathered up the necessary tools. As usual, I took a moment while he pressed a drug patch onto the skin above the wound to stare around the room at all the shining technology I couldn’t put a name to let alone a purpose. As my hand dropped off my sensory network, I did my best to take in the strange world around me. The med bay was a place of miracles and mystery to me, making me always feel more than a little intimidated by all of the tools and machines.   
To Sun Yin and Powder, they were simply part of the scenery but to someone like me, it simply didn’t feel real and I could never wrap my mind around how easily they could put the human body back together again. Sure, a lot of them still needed the human touch which was why Powder was doing various things to my hand I’d rather ignore, but this was still a place which inspired awe… and nervousness.  
Everything was so clean that it shone, and there were panels everywhere which blinked and flashed with information. Just stepping into the room activated half a dozen scanners which fed information to the wrist computer Powder wore. On it, he could tell my blood pressure, heart rate and likely my calorie count along with who knew what else. What was more humbling was that this was just a low tech room for simple walk in procedures. Down the hall was where the really amazing machines were. My personal favourite were the full immersion tanks. They could put you back together even if you were in pieces and on the brink of death. Debilitating injuries were nothing to them and I’d been in them twice so far because of injuries in the line of duty. Thankfully I’d been drugged to the gills at the time on painkillers so my experience of living in a can was rather fuzzy at best.   
In the past few months, I’d been shot several times, stabbed, had a landmine go off near me as well as two grenades and a wall topple over on me… none of which were my fault by the way. Each time, I’d left the med bay with only a few faint scars to add to my collection. Most of that I owed to Powder personally and if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have survived most of those injuries long enough to even get treatment. So maybe Sun Yin was right and I should be a little nicer to hi-  
“SUNOFABITCH!” I yanked my hand back as he poured some strange silvery liquid on my wound, making it feel as if it had been set on fire. Used to my expletives, Powder simply stood there out of reach, waiting for me to realize that my hand was still attached and calm down. Instead of throttling him, I hugged the injured limb to my chest and glared at him.   
“It wasn’t that bad.” He chided gently in amusement. “Now put your hand under the lamp so the skin will set properly. “I have other people with real injuries to tend to. Sun Yin, make sure he actually stays this time. If they catch him poking around the other rooms again I’ll get fined.” Once again I flipped him the rude gesture and once again he ignored it though he did take a moment to turn on the vid so I’d have something to occupy me while I waited. Still visibly ruffled, I settled back in the chair and did my best to ignore the strange pulling sensation on my hand. The painkillers certainly helped and I had to keep myself from trying to flex the fingers to see if they were working yet.  
The vid was set for the news and the translucent head of the reporter grinned at me warmly with empty eyes. Well-groomed and well fed; she was a Citizen though I wasn’t sure from which sector. “-lamentably withdrew her candidacy for Overseer, leaving Byng Sector without a candidate at this time. Overseer McCartney expressed his regret over her withdrawal and while he has vowed to uphold her declaration for the rights of clean water for all sectors, he continued to express concern over the growing threat of anarchy and lawlessness in several key districts.” I shook my head as I stared at the disembodied head and glanced around for something to change the channel to a more interesting show. Politics were dominating Fox Vegas news which I suppose was to be expected. Every ten years, the office of Overseer came up for vote and though Overseer McCartney had held the position for the last twenty years, he had stiff competition this time around. Judging by some of the stories floating around the base as well as on the vids, things were getting cutthroat in a rather literal fashion.   
“They were barmy for wanting the job in the first place.” I murmured with little interest. Politics had never meant much to me before enlisting. Every candidate I’d ever heard always made big promises they never intended to keep and most ignored the issues which meant life or death for people like me.   
The Narrows was Rommell Sectors dumping ground. Every sector had their slums, but Rommell held the dubious distinction of housing the worst of the worst. We’d always get blowhards popping up around election time, wanting to clean up the streets in one form or other. Most of the time this meant educating the masses or creating some make work project to turn us into viable members of society. Other times there were more sinister intentions which involved armoured soldiers and a lot of terrified people.   
Despite their efforts, every year, the Narrows got a little worse. Lacking adequate resources, people died by the thousands in the icy chill of winter or baked to death in the summer. Plagues were so common and medicine so rare that our best solution to sickness was to simply abandon whoever was ill and let the scavengers deal with them. Children with bellies swollen from hunger were a common enough sight, and crime was often the only recourse left if you wanted to survive.  
It was a little better than slavery really. If you were Naz; some poor lowlife not lucky enough to be born a Citizen, you didn’t get a vote or a say in how anything was run in the world around you. We were born, worked desperately for a chance to stay alive, bred like rats so that there’d be more hands out there earning income and then died when our health failed. So long as we remained properly subdued, the status quo was maintained. If anyone complained about this, those with the power would always point out that a better life was available to anyone. All it required was signing away five years of your life in active service to defend the City.  
The problem was that everyone knew it was a death sentence. Serving inside the massive city walls was dangerous enough, but soldiers were often sent out into the Wastes; those vast expanses of blasted lands which surrounded our isolated pocket of humanity. Out there, the ground itself was toxic, the air unbreathable and if you were unlucky enough to meet the things which lived out there… well, at least the military would be spared the need to bury your remains.   
Anytime you went past the walls, you were rolling the dice with your life and most people were smart enough to realize that while the Narrows was living hell, at least you were still living. For some people, there simply wasn’t any other option. My brother and I had fallen into that category. Serving might end in our horrible deaths but staying where we were would definitely do so. In the end, he’d done it to save my life and I suppose that I’d followed him for pretty much the same reason. We’d seen a lot of battle in the six months we’d been serving and twice we’d gone beyond the walls. Both times I’d ended up in the tanks with Powder fighting for my life.  
“They are brave and dedicated.” Sun Yin’s voice drew my attention back to the vid which was giving a run down on the current leaders for the office. Noting that she was still watching the vid with interest I did my best to pay it some attention.  
“Corrupt you mean.” It was difficult to shrug without moving my hand from the boxy contraption which imprisoned it but I managed. “Ten credits say she got caught playing on the shadeside.” Though Sun Yin’s eyes narrowed, she didn’t take the bet which said more than enough for me. “Ain’t none of them on the fly. Dig deep enough and you’ll find the same drek on all of them.” You didn’t move up to that level of government without one hell of an army of skeletons in your closet. Criminals were all the same, the only difference was how many people believed the lies you told. People didn’t want the position of Overseer out of the goodness of their hearts. Sure, they might say otherwise, but all they wanted was the power which came with it and there was no one more powerful than the Overseer.  
“And we will have live news coverage pertaining to Candidate Xander De LaCroix as he travels to the infamous Narrows of Rommell Sector to oversee the repairs to the water purification plant as well as visiting several hospitals and shelters housed within the area.” Water was a hot topic this election and everyone seemed to be determined to ride it into the ground. Last month, some parasites had gotten into the water supply over in Leonitis sector, resulting in a hundred deaths and many more sickened. It turned out that their filtration system hadn’t been overhauled in nearly a decade. The plant overseer had been pocketing the money intended for upgrades, letting everything fall apart. He’d been publicly executed for his actions but only an idiot believed that he’d acted alone. I’d watched it all on the vid and had to admit, it was rather nice to watch a pompous Citizen learn that they weren’t above the law. “Candidate De LaCroix has made several generous contributions to both the Lowell Street Shelter as well as the General Mackenzie hospital and he’s interested in showcasing the good work those funds have done. Many are speculating on what sort of security will be available seeing as how rumour states that he’s insisting on travelling by ground. This is a bold move for the golden boy of Dallaire.   
“In other news, rumours of the discovery of Minamoto Misako, the sole survivor of the Kin Ryu house massacre have been proven false. Authorities continue to search for clues…”   
Shaking my head in irritation, I swore under my breath at the report. They might as well put a neon target on his head while they were at it. Our squad was part of the security detail for the upcoming little parade of stupidity which was about to take place. The media called it a public awareness campaign but to me, this was just a rather inefficient way to commit suicide. Of course, no one was really interested in my opinion. Going into the Narrows was a risky idea to begin with, even if he stayed in the safer outer areas on Lowell St. Travelling by car though… not only was it an archaic form of travel, usually reserved for wealthy citizens or slumming Civilians, but it was dangerous. If he got swarmed, there’d be nothing any of us could do. A ground vehicle simply wasn’t manoeuvrable enough in the Narrows and only an idiot would think otherwise.   
Sure, Candidate DeLaCroix had grown up on the streets of Dallaire but that was nothing compared to the Narrows and if he had a brain in his head, he’d realize that. One would think that his PR people would have pointed out that this photo op wasn’t worth his life. Sure, getting a feel of the streets and showing the people that he understood their plight was all well and good but the man had no shortage of enemies. This stunt was just begging for them to take advantage of the situation.   
“I’m not sure what he’s hoping to accomplish, other than starting a riot.” Powder stated as he walked into the room to check on the progress of my hand. Glancing at the vid, he shook his head slightly. “It’s not like they can vote for him. No offence intended to present company.” He managed a rather belated smile of apology which I waved away with my good hand. Only Citizens had a vote. The rest of us just had to choke down their poor decisions and keep on going. “The Narrows…You couldn’t pay me to go there. Wiggle your fingers for me.”   
I obliged and was delighted to see the digits move. Even better was the fact that there was only the slightest bit of stiffness. That would fade within an hour or two so long as I kept moving them and I would have grinned from ear to ear except Sun Yin’s silence caught my attention. She was still staring at the talking head on the vid, her gaze distant and sad with the faintest of tensions lines around her eyes.  
“Drek Sun Yin, he ain’t ghosted yet.” I did my best to sound optimistic, never one of my strong suits at the best of times. Why she cared at all about the Candidate was beyond me. “Besides, with us putting the eye to him, he’ll waltz through this all slick and shine with no trial other than how to get the stink out of his clothes.” Though she tried to cover up the motion, I noticed how she started slightly at the sound of my voice. This was the most upset I’d ever seen her and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.  
“Wait… pardon?” Powder was suddenly in my face, wide blue eyes demanding my attention. Looking more than a little upset, he was one step away from shaking me. “What do you mean that you’re keeping an eye on him? Tell me that you’re planning on stalking him or something, not that we’re going to be going in there…”  
“Congrats Powder, down low is that we’re going to be part of the Long Arm. Seems you just got paid enough.” My smirk did wonders for hiding my own discomfort at the idea of going back to my home sweet hell. “Bring some of that disinfectant. You’ll need it.” Another glance at Sun Yin showed that whatever had bothered her was passed and she once again was the picture of perfect emotional balance. Good, anything that worried her scared the crap out of me.  
***

“Yup, this baku is gonna get us ghosted.” I grumbled as I stood in formation with the rest of Phantom Squad at the final checkpoint before entering the Narrows Proper. Unlike many of the other squads who were decked out in full armour and looking ready to leap into a war, we were wearing our “city leathers” as I called them. They were my favourite of our uniforms mostly due to the fact that they were not only lightweight, allowing for full range of movement, but they also looked amazingly badass. Black reinforced bodysuits, black long coats trimmed with blue and best of all, fancy tech visors which allowed our sergeant to see what we saw. Somewhere in the visors were also microphones which could filter out all other noise, picking up our voices no matter how quietly we whispered. I think they also monitored brain waves as well which wasn’t quite as comforting a thought but hey, it let our squad track us and confirm that we were still alive. That little feature had saved my life more than once.  
The idea of these outfits was that they would allow us to blend in more or less with the local populace while still maintaining some protection. Clearly our superiors had never seen what sort of clothing was considered to be the norm in the Narrows. While these worked like a charm in most parts of the city, here we stood out like sore thumbs, but at least we looked good.   
Today our superiors had relented, allowing us to also attach our chest plates, just in case we were fired upon. Our full armour uniforms were much more durable and were able to deflect most calibers of bullets, but that was reserved for our trips outside the walls, or for heavy fire operations. The “leathers” were… well, for this actually. While stopping bullets was beyond their scope, they did rather well against knives which were unfortunately much more common in the Narrows than firearms. Guns were about as rare as people with hopes and dreams where we were going. Still, having the chest plates did make me feel marginally more secure but that was still setting the bar rather low.  
Our job was to move through the crowd keeping an eye out for dissidents, suspicious behaviour, terrorist activities and anyone attempting to run the blockades. In short, just about any idiot in the Narrows. Now, I would have happily taken a Gatling gun with me, or at least some grenades. Our supply officer had actually laughed in my face at that request, forever earning my ire. Instead, our weaponry tended to be more on the light side. We had our standard sidearm, a boot and belt knife as well as some personal toys. Sun Yin had her sword of course, Jade had this telescoping pipe but the most impressive one was The Reapers sniper rifle. The thing was huge and not the least bit concealable but it could punch a hole the size of my fist through just about anything.  
As for myself, I had a micro wire and grapple on me, because it was always better to have one than not in my opinion. Anything else I needed, I figured I could find on my way. Besides, bulking myself down was a bad idea where we were going. With narrow winding alleys and countless blind spots, you had to be able to move fast.   
Lastly, we were all equipped with restraining straps. If we did find any troublemakers, we were to subdue them as quickly and quietly as possible and tag them for pickup. This was supposed to be a public spectacle, not a warzone. Both Jade and I had exchanged skeptical looks when they’d been issued to us. We all knew what happened to Naz who got nabbed by the Long Arm. Depending on the severity of their crime, they’d be publicly executed or flogged and sent to the Vaults. That was a nice way of saying that they’d be lobotomized and put into forced labour camps beneath the city for the rest of their lives. A quick death was by far the most merciful thing we could do to any would be criminals.   
“Stow it Shade.” Mirage, our corporal spared me a glance over her shoulder. Her real name was Jayce but people rarely called her that even out of the field. Like me, she wasn’t very tall or buff, but she didn’t have to be. Her features were soft, giving her what Powder called a “baby face” even though she was eighteen. Her light brown hair was nearly the same colour as her skin and those large eyes of hers were so dark, they appeared black.  
When we’d first met her, most of the squad had thought she was a young man around my age. I did my best not to tease them about it because she did have a rather androgynous quality about her, one which she took advantage of constantly to keep people off balance. Personally, I thought it was hilarious and I enjoyed watching her twist people around her little finger to get what she wanted.   
Mirage was the sort of person who could talk their way out of a lynch mobs wrath if she put her mind to it. She was a wheeler and dealer, seeming to know someone in just about any walk of life. Those she didn’t know were quickly convinced that they were old friends and it wasn’t hard to see why she was in charge of us. I don’t think that anyone else could have kept such a disparate group of outcasts working together.   
Unlike the rest of us, she wasn’t a big fighter, preferring to be our go between with the sergeant, gathering intel and keeping us all on the level. Infiltration was her big skill and her tricks and schemes had kept us alive through more situations than I wanted to count. Of course, her ambitions tended to get us into just as much trouble as she got us out of, so it pretty much evened out.   
While I wasn’t positive why Mirage had enlisted, my best guess was that she was hiding from someone. Figuring that this was the best way to lay low, get some well trained and armed allies on her side and make some good money while she was at it, it all made perfect sense. Credits were her lifeblood and while she seemed to enjoy spending them like they were going out of style, she always seemed to either have more on hand or someone willing to lend her some.  
“I sort of have to agree with Shade.” My brother Jade spoke up in his deep rumbling voice. Unlike me, he’d taken great pains to drop the Narrows accent from his speech as soon as possible. I didn’t know if it was in an attempt to prove himself worthy of Sun Yin or if he was just hoping to be taken more seriously but it always bothered me to hear it. Was he ashamed of who we’d been and what we’d had to do to survive? Stupid question, of course he was, that’s why he enlisted after all, to leave that life and all of its horrors behind us. At least I knew that who we’d been wasn’t going to wash off with the rest of the grime. We were Naz no matter how many pretty words we knew. It was in our bones.  
As if the lack of accent didn’t set us apart enough, physically we couldn’t have looked more different if we’d tried. His skin was a few shades darker than mine, especially on his arms which had been baked over the years from working with the recycling furnaces. His close cropped black hair had that just sheared look while his dark eyes were calm and expressive. What really set him apart from me and just about everyone else we’d ever met was his size. Where I looked like I was barely thirteen, he dwarfed everyone in the squad and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how. Growth like that took food, lots of food and I know that he had skirted starvation just like the rest of us.   
Huge slabs of muscle covered his massive frame and whenever he flexed, I was half convinced that he was going to bust right out of his armour. Unlike me, he also had an amicable face, laughed readily and put everyone around him at ease. Naturally, most people also figured that because he was so big, he also had to be dumb as a post, as if the two went hand in hand. Instead, Jade defied such stupid notions and was our tech guy. He understood how all the little machines around us worked and if it broke, he could fix it. That included weapons, electronics, vehicles and likely small buildings. In the field everyone called him Hammer but seeing as how I’d known him as Jade all my life, it was hard to remember. Granted, he was the only one who still called me Kyan, my real name. We always got warned about that but overcoming a lifetime of habit wasn’t easy.   
“This is a bad idea.” Jade continued, eyeing the checkpoint with suspicion. “No one in their right mind wants to go in there. Getting out is just too damn hard.”  
“I’m more worried about what we might catch in there… not to mention the smell. Ugh, what is that stench?” Powder shook his head and readjusted the straps of his med pack around his shoulders. A bright red “X” marked the shoulders of his uniform as well as the bag, proclaiming to anyone who looked that he was a medic. I’d advised that he cover the marks before going in. The instant people saw that, they’d swarm him, begging him to fix their endless list of maladies and preventing him from doing his job. He’d refused of course, feeling that doing so would be an affront to all he stood for. I’d see how he felt about that after he’d been pawed at by the filthy ragged masses for an hour.  
“Cut the chatter, we’re about to begin.” Mirage didn’t sound anymore thrilled than the rest of us and I pretended not to notice her sniffing the air and then wrinkling her nose slightly in disgust.   
“Looks like we’re stuck on the ground Reaper.” I risked a smile at the last member of our squad. Looming in the shadows on the edge of our group as always, he radiated barely repressed hostility. While he was as tall as my brother; an asset when one makes a career out of looming, he wasn’t nearly as muscular. Instead, he had a lean wiry build and nearly every centimeter of his dark tanned skin was badly scarred. Long rangy hair which was already showing a great deal of steely grey amongst the black was pulled back out of his face and bound in a tight queue just like mine. There was a guarded flatness to his eyes, a quality we both seemed to share and it spoke volumes as to the hard life he’d led.   
The Reaper was a Rat and if there was one thing lower than a Naz in the great hierarchy of life, it was a Waste Rat. They lived outside the walls in small pockets of … Well, civilization would be too generous a term. Rumours had it that those who lived outside the walls were cannibals and no better than the beasts that stalked the wastes. Cunning and vicious, they ruled the wilds of our world and generally shunned civilization and with good reason. Considered to be genetically filthy and bringers of disease, outbreaks of plague were often blamed on Rats. If one of them happened to be found in the vicinity of a sickness, they were often burned alive for the protection of all… at least in the Narrows.  
I might have grown up seeing the worst humanity had to offer, but he’d lived through the worst the planet itself could throw at you. He’d come to us already knowing how to kill, clutching an old rifle in hand and with it, he was like some wrathful god. Though he was the team sniper, he took his solitude very seriously and as a result we knew almost nothing about him. What we did know had been dug up by Jayce while playing in our personnel files. On the few times he actually chose to speak, it was using the fewest words possible. In the months I’d known him, I’d only seen him smile once and that was the day they’d licensed him for his sniper rifle.   
The Reaper and I didn’t really get along. He was a stone cold killer and when I looked at him, I saw a time bomb waiting to go off. It was a safe bet that he saw pretty much the same thing in me with the added bonus that he figured I was crazy… which I wasn’t.  
All in all, we were a rather well rounded group and I was pretty sure that only in the military would you find Citizens working alongside Naz and Rats. It gave us an interesting perspective even if it did make our interpersonal relationships rather chaotic.  
“If the man wants to go for a drive through hell, it’s our job to see that he makes it through without a scratch.” Mirage continued, her mouth pressed into a grim line as she motioned us to form up. While I wasn’t too sure where this hell was, I was pretty sure that if it wasn’t in the Narrows, it was likely close by.  
The main motor pool was gathering in the square behind us, flanked by a small army of armour clad goons, each one armed to the teeth and ready for trouble. They were the rank and file of the military. Phantom Squad was one of the elite units and I felt a little flush of pride as I took note of our sister squads in their “leathers” already slipping through the checkpoint and fanning out. Looking all slick and deadly, figuring they were ready to take on anything the Narrows threw at them. They were going to get eaten alive in there.  
Our chief rivals were decked out in black with green trim, Phase Squad. We might as well have been clones of each other as far as our roster was concerned and I took a moment to give their scout, Shadow a challenging glare.   
“Falling behind already Shade?” He called over his shoulder at me, his white teeth gleaming against the darkness of his skin. “Don’t worry; we’ll clear out all the big scary people for you. You just follow along when you’re ready.” We were the same age and build though his skin was deep rich brown much darker than was common. Like me, he’d refrained from cutting his hair short, opting instead to bind it tightly back out of his rather expressive face. Both of us were at the top of our class in training and constantly fighting to be the best. So far I was ahead in that regard and wasn’t about to let him forget that for a moment.  
“Tell is that Phase needs a good head start.” My voice was every bit as smug as his as I grinned back at him fiercely. “You run into the heavy, don’t be too feared to cry out. This ain’t no plush little stalk through Musashi Sector.” I was rather proud of that jab seeing as how on his last assignment, Shadow had gotten caught in the wrong place at the wrong time on a supposedly easy job. The end result had him being chased halfway across one of its districts by a rather determined and resourceful gang.   
“So says the guy who gets shot whenever he leaves the barracks.” Ouch… I suppose I sort of walked into that one.  
“Chat with your friends after work Shade.” Jade butted in with good natured bad timing, using his bulk to steer me back to the rest of the group while Shadow was snapped at by his corporal to pay attention. Both of us wore identical sulky expressions but returned to our groups without argument.  
Up above, news drones buzzed around like flies over a carcass, fighting for the best angle for their viewers. Network logos shone in bright aggressive colours, reminding me of street gangs as they all fought for prominence. Even as I watched, one particularly belligerent one slammed into a smaller drone, sending it careening off to the side. Clipping a nearby building, it staggered badly but managed to remain aloft. They were behaving themselves for the most part which was rather surprising seeing as how many of them were armed with various little nasty tricks to short out the competition. This was a world of survival of the fittest and that rule applied even to our toys.  
Below them, hidden by a phalanx of bodyguards was Candidate Xander DeLaCroix, universal do-gooder and bearer of questionable judgement. This wasn’t just my inner sarcasm speaking. Our briefing had included the mind boggling fact that not only was he using a ground vehicle, but it wasn’t equipped with shields or anything more than rudimentary armaments. The man wanted to be seen by both the denizens of the Narrows as well as his competitors as a man who wasn’t afraid of society’s darkest places. Some might call him brave or visionary. Personally, I couldn’t help but thinking that he’d lost one hell of a bet.   
If all went according to plan, he’d be about ten minutes behind us, giving us a rather small window to identify problems and deal with them before the media got within range of anything interesting. This wasn’t just a show of his popularity after all; it was a statement of military power. It didn’t take a political analyst to know that if things went badly here, some of our more gung ho candidates would use it as an opportunity to finally clear out the Narrows and every place like it. At best, they’d use it to tighten the chains which were already strangling ninety percent of the populace.  
“Ready to move out Sergeant.” Mirage spoke into her communicator and then snapped up the hand sign to follow her as she began walking towards the checkpoint.   
On this side, it was usually only guarded by two soldiers who gave us an uncharacteristically thorough check just in case the media was watching. Military IDs were shown and papers checked before they waved us through the huge durasteel doors. Open during the day for foot traffic, they closed at night to keep the unsavoury element locked in their cages. At three feet thick and as heavy as they looked, nothing got through them once they were closed.   
Despite having the proper clearances, I still felt a chill as I walked through them and back into the nightmare world I’d once left behind. It was like walking into a trap and I wasn’t so sure that getting out would be quite this easy. The Narrows had a way of sucking you in and drowning you in its depths.  
If the section of the city we’d just left behind was bad, what we walked into made it seem like a paradise. This side of the door boasted five large and heavily armed men flanking either side. All of them looked ready and eager to deal with any unruly Naz who got ambitious enough to either actually pose some sort of threat or “gasp” leave without clearance. I knew from experience that they were more than willing to shoot and kill any idiot who didn’t have their papers in order; in fact, it was sort of a spectator sport.   
Vendors flocked here, hawking their dubious wares to those entering the Narrows. With them were the ever-present pimps, whores and seedy types who could get you whatever you needed… for the right price. At least they’d taken down the stocks and gallows for the Candidates visit. No one wanted to see rotting bodies or wretches screaming for mercy on humanitarian visits. Of course, they’d go back up the instant everyone left and things went back to normal. Until then, everyone was on their best behaviour, hard eyes studied us as we entered and I had to resist my initial urge to fade back into the group and be unnoticed. Gritting my teeth, I stood up as tall as I could, pulled my shoulders back and glared at one of the nearby pimps, daring him to do something. Seeing him back down almost immediately was one of the best things I’d seen in my life and suddenly I felt a lot better about coming back here.  
“I miss my breather.” Powder grumbled softly, covering his mouth and nose with his hand and sucking a little bit of my victory away. Glancing over at him, I watched as he carefully sidestepped a pile of what looked suspiciously like human waste.  
“This is the burbs.” I couldn’t quite keep the bitter smile off my lips as I took a deep breath as if that would somehow prove my manliness in his eyes. After months of sterile Citadel air, even I was noticing the stench but there wasn’t a chance that I was going to let him know that. “Wait till you put eyes to the slums.” The look on his face said more than words ever could. It was one thing to hear my stories of various atrocities and hellish conditions but it was quite another to physically see them for himself. “Try not to touch nothin’.”  
The usually large and open square by the gates was packed with more people than I’d ever seen in one place, making me wonder if attendance had been made mandatory for the event. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me but at least they all seemed to be more or less content at the moment.  
There was only one actual road here and that was Lowell St. It stretched out from the gate in a straight line until you hit the inner wall. Once, long ago, before the Narrows had become a cesspool, there had been a gate at the wall which had led to the outer wall and beyond that, the world. I wasn’t sure why, but the gate had been sealed up rather thoroughly and the wall was now heavily patrolled in case anyone got the bright idea of trying to open it. Without that thoroughfare, the area had begun its downward spiral to its current infamy.  
Overcrowding and haphazard building practices had narrowed ancient streets, turning them into endless mazes; many alleys were barely wide enough for someone like Jade to make it through. It was a terrible place to be if you were claustrophobic and had likely been the source of why it was called The Narrows.   
Only Lowell St was kept clear of encroaching building and the military often went through regularly to ensure that it stayed that way. It was the only route large enough for a car to travel down which I suppose worked out well enough since no one here could afford a vehicle of any sort. Add in the barriers which had been set up to keep back the masses and there wasn’t much room for the Candidate and his entourage. They’d be walking single file, not much of an effective deterrent if someone actually did run the barricades with serious intent. Worse, the barriers were pretty makeshift. I didn’t see any shock features or shields on them, making them effectively useless.   
I traded looks of concern with Sun Yin… actually I should call her Dragon now that we were in the field. She had noticed the lacklustre defences as well and without a word, we both melded into the crowd with ease despite our conspicuous clothing. We would need to be at the top of our game if we were going to get the Candidate through this and it seemed that whoever had planned this debacle was working actively against us.  
Unable to resist, I cast a few longing glances at the rooftops. A top view would show me so much more of what was going on here, and honestly, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel a certain bit of nostalgia. Amongst other things, I’d been a roof walker. Scampering up and down walls, across roofs and hopping over the abysses in-between. The heights had been my home as much as the back alley depths. Jumping from one precarious perch to the next and feeling the fetid wind in my hair, I courted death with every step. Sometimes it seemed that the only time I ever felt truly alive was when I was spitting in Death’s eye.   
At least I had the satisfaction that The Reaper was enjoying this even less than I was. Here on the ground with the rest of us scum; he was just a man rather than divine judgment. That had to be driving him nuts.  
“Hammer, Shade, since you two know the area better than anyone else, I need you both to speak up if anything doesn’t feel right or if we’re about to walk into trouble.”   
“This whole trial is blown.” I murmured in reply to Mirage while deftly relieving a passing man of a rather nasty looking knife and tucking it into my own weapon belt without him noticing. You could never have too many knives, that’s my philosophy.   
“Positive outlook Shade. Let’s be positive here.” I could almost see her rolling her eyes and shaking her head at my cynicism. Hey, it wasn’t my fault that I was a realist.  
“That is on the shine.” No one ever listened to me despite the fact that I was usually right. Seriously, what was it with people? “When has anything ever gone our way?”  
“He’s sort of correct in that observation.” Powder came to my rescue. “We do have a rather well documented track record of always seeming to step into the worst of things.” A smile tugged at my lips despite my attempts to look stern and dour as I slipped past four thugs wearing the colours of the Crypt Raiders gang. They were low level thugs dealing mostly in chemically induced Dreamtime with the odd foray into mercenary work for the bigger outfits. They looked more curious about what was going on than like they were planning anything nefarious and I didn’t see anything worse on them aside from some homemade shivs and an old pipe. “Er… that is what you said right Shade?”  
“You got the tell.” I confirmed, idly picturing how amusing it would be to have him give a demonstration of Narrowspeak to his high and mighty father. That would be something worth recording.  
“Let’s not go borrowing trouble if we don’t have to. Dragon, go check out that crowd by that bar over on our left. They look suspicious. Shade, put down that bug and give the alley a quick scan. There’s too many places for people to hide here for my liking.” With a suspicious glance in Mirage’s general, I tucked the roach in a little belt compartment for later. Why did she always have to log into my visor whenever I was doing something the rest of them considered to be strange. Bugs were the best source of protein around and it was clear that we were going to be out here for a few hours. I might want a snack.   
Knowing better than to argue, I glanced into the alley in question and immediately noted that … well, there was nothing of note. Two skaggheads were sleeping off their dreamtime next to a rather dead and rotting rat too claimed by maggots to interest me. Oh, let’s not forget that pool of bloody vomit; it might be plotting something seditious. I really hoped that she wasn’t going to send me out to poke my nose into every little nook and cranny that caught her attention, there were simply too many of them. Besides, common sense stated that if there really were people out there planning to ruin our day, they’d wait until we were further away from possible help. Right now, we were simply too close to the gate and reinforcements for anyone to dare.  
For a fleeting moment, I debated on just saying I’d scouted it and wander off to check something more interesting looking, but I could almost hear Dragon’s disapproving voice lecturing me. “Everything one does must be completed to the best of their abilities. If one cannot be moved to seek perfection then one will never find it.” Of course, she’d sound as if she was explaining something utterly obvious and really, I suppose it was. How many security perimeters had I slipped through because of one single lazy guard or broken link? Far too many, that was for sure and if I didn’t want to be counted amongst them, that meant I had to go and be dutiful. Dammit.   
The rat stayed dead, the Skaggheads might as well have been and the pool of vomit played it all casual so I chose to let it continue laying there. As suspected, there were no threats but at least my conscience was clear and my mental Dragon wouldn’t give me that stern look of disapproval.  
The next ten alleys I checked were as equally exciting. Sure there were more people moving through them as they were all heading to witness the upcoming spectacle. None of them sent off little internal warnings in my head so I didn’t pay them any special sort of attention. Most of them carefully averted their eyes from me as they passed by. I was clean and well dressed, something which didn’t bode well for them and they were all too eager to slip passed unchallenged. The only ones to pause for a moment and size me up were some local toughs.   
Though they towered over me it didn’t progress beyond a few wary glares before they gave me a wide berth. These thugs were after easy prey today and that wasn’t me anymore. I actually felt light headed and giddy as I realized that they saw me as a predator and one worthy of distance. It made every bruise and bloody wound in the past six months feel worthwhile. Maybe this assignment wasn’t so bad after all.  
This happy feeling persisted for a good hour and a bit as the procession went underway. The Candidate’s first stop had been successful and the media was just lapping it up, especially when he presented an artificial leg for a little girl who’d lost hers from some sort of accident. One look at the kid and I knew she wasn’t local, likely some kid of a down and out citizen nearby. It was just as well, if she’d lived here, that leg would have been stolen by the first people to see her. Those parts would be worth more than most of us saw in a lifetime of scrounging.   
We were nearly at the halfway mark of the tour and Mirage was relaying the Candidates position to us regularly. There hadn’t been too much excitement on our end. Some skagghead junkie had stumbled past the barrier at one point and some drunken idiots had tried to block the parades progress with some pointless protest. Both incidents had been quickly dealt with and I doubt the Candidate had even noticed them as he waved happily to the crowd.  
We were heading towards our second big stop, the Lowell Street Shelter. I’d heard about it growing up but had never been there personally. It was one of the biggest shelters in the Narrows, and big shelters meant lots of people… needy people. Wherever you found those, you also found a corresponding number of predators and it simply hadn’t been worth the risk. We’d stuck to the smaller shelters when the cold had made us choose between the human risk or simply freezing to death. You had to be constantly on your guard no matter how safe the place claimed it was and most of those times I’d survived unscathed.   
“So… this is where you grew up?” Powder was standing next to me as I took a moment to scan the crowd. We’d stopped for a few minutes so the Candidate could speak to a couple of Naz, asking them what they were looking for in an Overseer. They were naturally in utter awe at the attention and the media drones swarmed around them like flies on a corpse, jostling for the best angles.  
Less than ten feet away, a group of rather brave young pickpockets were working their magic on the gawking crowd, relieving them of precious credit chits while their keeper watched from a discreet distance. Poor Powder sounded both disgusted and awed that anything could survive in these conditions. My nose had thankfully readjusted to the perpetual stench of the area which was only growing worse the further in we got and I didn’t like the memories it was bringing back to the surface.   
“Nah, this was still too flash for us. We lived about twenty minutes away on foot.” I jerked my chin in the direction of our old apartments. “Ain’t no roads that go there, gotta light your way past the Pits.”   
“The… the refuse pits you mean?” He sounded utterly horrified though I simply shrugged as both of us looked up. Instead of sky, all we could see were the undersides of buildings barely visible through the murky haze and crisscrossing pipes. Space was at a premium within the protective city walls and upon learning that they could no longer build outward, the city planners had instead chosen to build upwards. The Citadels were the culmination of this vision, but plenty of other districts had grown out from their bases, burying the Narrows beneath.   
The Pits were located beneath the waste centers of the upper city and once a day, they would open wide. When they did, it rained treasure down on the rest of us, providing both sustenance and resources for our buried city. They were what kept us alive in our living graves and were the center of Narrows economy.  
The instant the cast offs of our betters ceased falling; the scroungers would be out in force with our bags and pry bars. We’d sort through the mountains of waste, finding food, scrap and the odd technological treasure. These would all be sold to the various traders and recyclers which all set up shop near each pit.   
It wasn’t just the scroungers who frequented the Pits. Wherever there was profit, you’d find the inevitable gangs lurking about. They’d rob anyone weaker than they were, stealing hard earned scrap and turning a tidy profit. Often they worked for the recyclers, cutting out the middle men in a very literal sense. With them came the dealers of flesh and chemicals, always ready to relieve the gangs of their newly acquired credits. It was an entire ecosystem, each piece living off the other and all of it centered on that precious garbage.  
I’d been one of the scroungers, risking my neck every day on those perilous heaps, fighting for scraps against other scavengers and gangs. Broken bones, bruises and worse were common occurrences and the trick was to get in, find something worthwhile and sell it as quickly as possible before it was taken from you. Most scroungers didn’t last too long, but there were always more to replace them.   
It was a dangerous job and not just because of the human element. Disease ran rampant through the Pits and the smallest scratch could cost you your life if you weren’t careful. Much safer were the laundries or the recyclers. Jade had worked with the latter and spent upwards of eighteen hours a day in front of a huge burning forge, feeding it endless scraps of metal to be melted down into bars. The good quality bars were then inevitably sold back to the very people who continued to bury our world beneath them while the low quality metal would be turned into various tools and building materials for our area.  
Neither were easy lives, but they kept us going even when we couldn’t remember why we were fighting so hard to stay alive.  
I’d gone my entire life having never seen the sky. Sure, I’d known it existed… in a vague sort of sense. Vids said it was there and they were really our only source of information about the world beyond the Narrows. Still, hearing that there was actually some sort of big blue dome surrounding us and actually seeing it… words simply couldn’t describe my shock and awe. Even that paled in comparison however by the huge ball of fire billions of miles away which burned so hot that it heated our world with its flames. The others had all thought I was stupid for not really understanding these concepts that they’d taken for granted and looking at Powders face, I think he was finally learning my side of things.  
“I… I never really knew that places like this existed.” He murmured finally, glancing down at the ground and toeing a suspiciously moving scrap of cloth with his boot. “I mean, we had some jokes that we’d tell, and you’d see vids of uprisings or executions, but… It’s not the same as living in it is it?”  
“You got eyes on those kids making the dash through the crowd?” Again I motioned with my chin, not wanting to draw too much attention to the little thieves.   
“The ones playing you mean?” His innocence made me smile despite myself.  
“They’re slips. Thieves.” Blue eyes grew wider and he couldn’t help but stare. “All they’ll get is maybe a handful or two of chits for -their trials by the end of the day.” My smile faded as I watched him watch them. “If they’re blown, they lose a hand. High price to pay, but if they don’t, that nom over there will bring the heavy to them.” I knew all too well the high price of being caught stealing and while it might not always be reported to the Long Arm, vigilante justice was popular in these parts. I’d been lucky and kept my hand but my back was a network of scars from the whipping I’d received.   
Once, a lifetime ago, a whole credit would have been a fortune to me. I’d done a lot of horrible and degrading things to earn even half that much. For Powder though, it was less than pocket change. In fact, I was willing to bet that he’d never even seen what a chit actually looked like, let alone a single credit. The others were all so eager to spend the money we earned on food, trinkets and diversions that it boggled my mind. My hard earned credits were hoarded jealously and I never spent a single one unless there were no other options. Too much of my life had been devoted towards gathering enough credits to survive that I couldn’t easily forget how easily they could disappear. Besides, what the military didn’t provide, I could easily scrounge for myself.   
“This place is out of balance.” Dragon appeared next to us without warning and to our credit, neither Powder nor I jumped. It made me a little proud to realize that, I’ll admit it. Her sword was sheathed, though the fact that she held the scabbard freely in her hand rather than tucked into her belt didn’t bode well.  
“Put the fear into someone?” Though my tone was casual, curiosity filled me.  
“A man was striking upon a woman within an alley.” Her dark eyes flashed with a cold deep rage, making me glad that I hadn’t been on the receiving end of her wrath. “He shall not strike another. Ever.” There were many reasons why I admired this woman. This was simply one of them. She didn’t waste time trying to convince people of the error of their ways when it was a pointless battle. Instead, she saw a problem and acted on it decisively. So many of Fox Vegas’ problems could be fixed if more people took that sort of direct approach.  
“Did you report it?” Powder glanced around nervously, likely ready to go and help the victim of our teammate. “You should have reported it.”   
“He will survive, I ensured that much.” Cold aristocratic haughtiness greeted his concern practically daring him to challenge her over it. This was the perfect time to be elsewhere and without a word, I stepped back to let the two of them sort it out. While I had no problem with her dispensing some vigilante justice, I wasn’t going to pretend to understand why it should matter to her if some guy was beating up on a woman. It’s not as if she knew either of them. I’d have spoken up to ask, but already knew that all I’d get by way of answer would be a look that said I should already know why. I hated that look.  
“Good for her.” Jade stepped over and leaned against the wall by my side, his eyes focused solely on Dragon and they radiated a deep sense of pride. “The strong should do all they can to protect the weak.”   
“Why?” At least he wouldn’t give me that quasi-pitying look the others would to my question. “Ain’t gonna help em get stronger. Protect the weak and they just get needy and weak.” I shrugged and looked back out at the crowd, searching for signs that Candidate De LaCroix was finished kissing babies or whatever he was doing. “Living ain’t for the weak. You gotta earn the right to keep breathing or else what’s the point?”  
Rather than just blurt out some easy answer, he took a deep breath, the leather of his jacket creaking ominously from the strain. I knew that he was looking back at all we’d endured, our endless struggles to survive from one day to the next for no other reason than to simply live.  
“You were weak once.” He finally replied, his voice soft. As if I needed reminding of that fact. While my initial reaction was to bristle and snap out some scathing reply, I quickly realized that he’d used the past tense. It was a rare thing for my big brother to ever admit that I wasn’t in need of coddling or constant care.  
“Once. I ain’t weak no more.”  
“Physical strength doesn’t make one person better than another, how they use it does.” Ugh, he was starting to sound like my psychiatrist, like it was some great duty to protect the weak and the lazy. Why should I put my life on the line for people who were essentially useless and would only pull me down with them? His dark brown eyes searched mine, trying to find understanding in their blue depths. “Why enlist then?” Oh that one was easy.  
“Because you did.” There wasn’t even a need to think about my answer.  
“And since then?” My blank look likely answered his question for him but rather than get annoyed, he just smiled at me patiently. “Kyan… Shade.” He corrected himself quickly. “I’ve seen you throw yourself into the path of oncoming fire to protect others more than once. You’ve put your own life at risk for your team every time you go out into the field. How is that any different?”  
“I ken you and ain’t none of you is weak.” Again I shrugged and glanced over at my team with perhaps just a touch of pride in my voice. “The strong walk tall and make each other stronger. Ain’t none of you gonna slide when I’m in the heavy, so why should I? Some weak slad ain’t gonna do drek but get me killed.”  
“You should give them a chance, people will surprise you.” With the familiar maddening smile which said big brother knows best, he turned from me to walk over to Dragon and Powder. His departure took away any chance I might have to shoot him a snappy comeback without sounding like a little kid. Instead, I opted for glaring at his back before heading over to Mirage who was busy with the communicator.  
“They’re going to be moving out shortly.” She didn’t even glance up as she studied the little glowing map readout floating above her wrist guard. I never got to play with the cool tech toys and it always made me just a little jealous. Granted, I was about as tech savvy as the roach tucked away in my belt, so I suppose it really wasn’t that surprising. “Dawn Squad ran into some problems in grid three. It’s nothing big, just some street gang planning to cause problems.”  
“Do they need backup?” I likely sounded a tad too eager, but hey, giving a little hurt back to the near omnipotent gangs of my youth was one of life’s greatest pleasures. My motives were likely easily read and understood judging by the slight smile our corporal shared with me, though she shook her head.   
“They have it under control. How are things looking here? Things have been quiet, but I’m almost starting to worry that it’s too quiet. You and Hammer always painted this place to be hell on earth, but other than the smell, it’s not as bad as I’d expected.” For a brief moment I pondered telling her that some idiot lost track of his hand but then decided against it. No one ever understood my sense of humour and I didn’t want to cause Dragon any problems.  
“This is whitewash.” I glanced around us and shrugged. “Take a dash off Lowell St and the real Narrows’ll take a bite outta you. Ain’t no trials cause of the Long Arm. Only a baku would try the heavy here today.”   
“Hmph. I wish it was that simple.” Ah, so she figured that something was up. It was good to see that she wasn’t as trusting as some of our leaders were in this show of force.   
She might have said more but her head cocked to the side slightly. It was a motion I was familiar with and knew that our sergeant was speaking to her over the com. When she spoke again, her voice echoed over my audio feed as well as from in front of me, creating a slightly disorienting effect.   
“Let’s get a move on people. We’re not being paid by the hour and I want our grid secured before they move out again.” It all seemed pretty clear to me, but the sergeant was likely as concerned as she was about how smoothly this was all going.   
“Where’s The Reaper?” He always seemed to glower a little less when I added the “The” in front of his name.   
“Up ahead where you’re supposed to be.” Ouch. Fine, I could take a less than subtle hint. Needing no further prodding, I flashed her a jaunty salute and then vanished into the crowd. No way was some antisocial Waste Rat going to show me up on my own turf.  
It didn’t take too long to find him. Our cheery sniper was just hopping down from a second story ledge, rifle slung over his back and his lips pressed tightly together in a grim line. He hadn’t seen me approach and when I intentionally stepped on a piece of scrap to make noise, his hand immediately went to his backup sidearm. An instant later I was identified as not a threat… at least to him and he relaxed marginally.  
“Tell was we ain’t supposed to be roofside.” He barely understood me at the best of times but at least he got the jist of what I was saying. Normally, he’d just grunt or make some sort of annoyed sound before walking away from me. This time, he took a moment to glance back up at the murky roof of our world.  
“Thought I saw something.” The Reaper’s voice sounded as if he’d been gargling with gravel for most of his life and for all I knew, he actually had been. Waste Rats were a strange lot for the most part but even I had to admit, it certainly added to his ominous character. Following his gaze, I squinted as I tried to pierce the brown fog up above.   
“Sparrows.” I replied, giving the name for the rooftop denizens who lived among the rafters and bowels of the city above. They were nasty xenophobic buggers who loved to set endless traps and snares for anyone stupid enough to venture into what they considered to be their territory. It was no small source of pride for me that I could navigate many of the hazards they provided. As one of the few roofwalkers who’d lived to see their lofty little world, I could understand why they protected it so jealously. From up above, when the foul polluted fog parted, the Narrows looked almost beautiful. A thousand splintered little jewels of light filled with the odd snatches of music drifting up from below and a sense of peace which only distance could bring. It was only when you drew close that you saw all of the corruption and filth it was drowning in. “We’re on the edge of their turf. Ain’t no worries, they don’t bring the heavy lest you try to go roofwalking.”  
He didn’t look convinced and continued to look up suspiciously. It was starting to make me nervous and I found myself studying the edges of windows and awnings for any telltale signs of movement. All I could see was an old lady about to dump out a privy bucket, some guys shooting up on a makeshift balcony and what looked like a body hanging out a window on the twelfth floor. Nothing of any surprise or interest, though I did pull The Reaper back out of the splash zone for the privy waste.   
“We should be up top.” He grumbled, making this perhaps the longest conversation I’d ever had with him in my life. Unfortunately, I had to agree with him. Being down on the ground, surrounded by too many eyes wasn’t my thing, but I wasn’t going to be the first one to break the rules. Let The Reaper have that honour if he was determined to take it.  
“Let’s keep moving. I ken you’ll find something to ghost soon enough.” I tried to sound nonchalant about it, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that The Reaper was right. Something was watching us from up above. Ah, screw it. This wouldn’t be the first time I broke the rules and really, wasn’t it better to beg forgiveness and all that than have someone snipe at me from above.   
I grabbed a hold of the edge of the nearest structure and began to hoist myself up, my eyes already studying the path that I’d take to get to the top. The Reaper made as if to follow me but I shot him a warning look.  
“You ain’t got the ken to put the eyes on Sparrow traps Reaper.” Yes, I sounded just a little smug but hey, out in the wastes he never hesitated to remind me of how out of my element I was, so turnabout was fair play. “Stay here and cover the others.” The look he shot me warned of many a sleepless night to come, but he didn’t argue. It had been made abundantly clear several times today that Jade and I were the authority on Narrows survival and be damned if I wasn’t going to take advantage of it a little.  
“Guys, close on my signal. We might have a problem.” Oh of all the….  
“Details Hammer, give us details.” Mirage didn’t sound at all happy. Worse, The Reaper had a smug smirk on his face as he heard the same message I did. There wasn’t time to get topside and head over to where Jade was. It looked like I was just as land bound as he was.  
“Some thugs just tore past me like they was on fire… er… were on fire, sorry.” Ah, it seemed that not even my brother could wash the gutter completely out of his vocabulary. He was likely kicking himself for the verbal slipup.  
“Got anything more than that?” I’d already let go of my little perch and was heading towards Jade. I trusted his instincts even if our corporal didn’t. The Reaper fell into place behind me, looking interested for the first time today.  
“I didn’t recognize their colours or tags. Call it a gut feeling, but something is up.”  
“Can you track them?” This time it was Dragon speaking, her crisp and precisely spoken words contrasted sharply with Mirage and Jade’s easy way of speaking.  
“That’s a negative.” There was an apologetic tone to Jades voice, making it sound as if he’d failed in some way. “I lost them in the crowd almost instantly.” Urban tracking had never been one of his strengths, something I’d taken full advantage of growing up. Once again, I shot the roofs a longing look. They’d be easy enough to spot from up above, but it would simply take too long to get up there. As much as I loathed admitting, it was best that I stay on the ground and help the team in a more direct fashion.  
Thankfully, he wasn’t too far away and I reached the mouth of the alley in no time. While I wasn’t overly familiar with this particular section of the Narrows, I recognized this as an old access alley and it likely dead ended after a few hundred feet but had enough blind turns to grant an illusion of quasi privacy. This was the sort of place popular with whores for quick trysts or for snatch and grabbers to sort out their loot. In fact, I could already see an old beaten and weathered bag one of them had left behind.   
Frowning, I walked over cautiously, my eyes darting around suspiciously. No wonder Jade was concerned. No one would leave a bag like that, especially with half its contests still strewn about. Something had driven that gang out of the alley and they’d run fast enough to leave anything which might slow them down.   
Jade stood at the mouth of the alley by the bag. Rather than holding his firearm at the ready, he had his heavy baton out and was using it to gingerly feel through the bag, moving aside contents just enough to likely check that this wasn’t some sort of bomb. The baton would look awkward in anyone’s hands but his and I’d seen him dent metal doors with that thing. With a guy his size, the baton not only looked scarier than a gun but it also blended in more with what the locals would carry.   
Dragon was coming up from the left, flanked by Powder. The Reaper was still behind me but I didn’t see Mirage anywhere. Frowning slightly in confusion, I looked around but Jade quickly answered my unspoken question.  
“She went ahead.” This was the point where I generally take a moment to swear rather colourfully in the most vulgar Narrowspeak I could. She was the brains of this outfit and I was the idiot who was supposed to wander headfirst into danger. It was important not to upset the delicate dynamics of our team like this.  
“Mirage…” I all but hissed over the comm. Arguing with my superior officer really was becoming a bad habit with me, but I usually did my best never to do it over our channel where the sergeant might hear it. I was going to be written up so badly by the end of this mission that I was going to be cleaning out the sewage tanks for a year. “Are you barmy? I’m the scout. First dash is mine.” Diplomacy wasn’t my strong suit so I didn’t even try to play at it. Something was seriously wrong here and it was making me edgier than usual.  
Looking inside, I couldn’t see her, meaning she’d already made it around the first turn. At least the whores had cleared out the same time the gang had so I wasn’t going to have to be trying to keep an eye on them while hunting down our leader. Motioning for the others to follow at a distance, I hopped easily over the recycling bin which half blocked the entrance. Gloom surrounded me almost instantly as we moved beyond the intermittent street lighting. At least we were lucky with the fact that there was still enough ambient light being reflected down to let us see. Any deeper into the Narrows and we’d be risking going in blind.  
“Relax Shade.” Her voice was hushed but calm. Up ahead I could hear her footsteps crunching on the broken ground and something metallic clank sharply. Ugh, she might as well be yelling out her location to whatever had scared that gang. “Damn can… Look, it’s likely a false alarm or just some idiots pulling a stupid stunt.”   
“Gangs don’t blow with their loot unpicked.” I argued. “They stand ground and bring the heavy to defend it. Pull back and let me put the eyes to this. You’re making enough noise to give everyone the tell that you’re there.” Unlike her, my steps were soundless and I avoided the various piles of refuse with long familiar skill.   
The deeper I moved into the alley, the stronger that feeling of wrongness became until I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing up. All of my senses grew sharper as the instincts I’d relied on all of my life warned me that this was going to be one of the stupidest things I’d done in a long while. Had I been alone, I’d have backed the hell out of here in a hurry, but that would mean leaving my corporal in there and if she got killed I didn’t imagine things going overly well for me. If we made it out of this alive, I was going to tear a strip off of her for this stunt.  
“I hear something…” She murmured softly and I wished that she’d just be quiet. We didn’t need updates and if she was close enough to hear whatever was in the alley, it was close enough to hear her too. “Scuffling… growling… something wet tearing…” Quickening my steps and noting that everything here was locked up tightly, sealing off any alternate escape routes, I followed the noise she was making. My mind conjured up half a dozen possibilities as to what she might have stumbled on and none of them were good.  
Rounding the corner, I could see her crouched low, taking advantage of the many shadows as she moved forward. Her gun was drawn and ready but that bad feeling continued to grow, causing me to pause for a moment and do another look around us.   
There was part of an old dilapidated fire escape just off to my left which started about twelve feet above us and went up four stories before it became too dangerous for even me to climb. The top few stories of the building on our right had collapsed some time ago and were likely the source of the debris littering the alley. Metal too rusted and pitted to be of any use to the recyclers made footing treacherous and there were chunks of stone and rotted plaster creating a good sized mound of rubble. Thankfully, it was between us and her quarry.   
Mirage paused at the edge of the debris pile, searching for a way to get over it safely and it gave me time to catch up to her. Motioning for her to back away quietly, I kept a nervous eye on the top of the rubble. Whatever was on the other side, I could hear it now and it made my skin crawl. Worse was the thick stench of blood and body waste in the air. Something had died… something large and I doubted that it had done so easily.   
A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed that the rest of the squad was approaching around the turn and I flashed them a signal to stop. Jade took up his usual post of guarding the exit. Our human wall would ensure that nothing made it past him and bothered the nice idiots out on the street. Taking care to stay out of any potential line of fire, Powder stayed close to the corners edge with his gun drawn and a look of resolve on his face. The Reaper dropped into a crouch, readying his rifle with crisp efficient movements while Dragon inched silently forward. Her sword was already drawn and seemed to shine softly in the dim light of the alley.  
In my moment of distraction, Mirage had begun to climb up the rubble. Wisely not trusting the rusted metal to support her weight, she was instead trying to stick with the more solid looking chunks of concrete interspersed around the browning plaster. The treacherous footing caused her to have to use her hands as another point of contact. While she was still holding her gun, it wasn’t held at the ready anymore and that didn’t fill me with confidence at all.  
Sticking to the shadows on the wall, I hopped up on a large piece of concrete which had fallen nearby. It gave me an additional three feet of elevation, letting me see over the rubble to what lay beyond.   
For a moment, all I could do was stare in horror as my bowels threatened to turn to water. Of all of the horrible things I’d pictured seeing, this hadn’t been one of them. It was far worse and this was from a guy who’d grown up seeing horrible things as a matter of course.   
“Back away Mirage!” I risked a whispered warning, praying that my voice didn’t carry. “Back away as quietly as you can. We need to order a heavy strike immediately!” This was one of my worst nightmares brought to grizzly life. My legs wanted to run out of here as fast as I could but I knew that if I moved, they’d see me. Once that happened, I’d be dead before I could call for help.  
There were seven people on the other side of that junk pile. Well… six people and the remains of a corpse. Do understand that I use the term people loosely because they only classed as that in a strictly biological sense. Mentally, they’d cashed in their chits.  
The six living nightmares were wearing filthy and torn rags which barely covered their thin bony bodies. Dirt and blood streaked their flesh in liberal doses but what made the blood drain from my face was the way they moved. It was animalistic and utterly feral as they snapped and tore at the body pinned beneath them. They were devouring their victim in a mad feeding frenzy, tearing off chunks of flesh in great bloody strips and shoving it into their mouths as fast as they could. Even as I watched, a large male bit off his own finger and swallowed it along with the meat. He didn’t seem to either notice or care.  
I could hear Mirage’s heavy breathing over the comm as she struggled not to throw up at the horrific sight. Why was she just standing there? We should be running, climbing the damn walls to get out of their reach rather than standing here waiting for them to see their after dinner snacks.   
Even as I thought that, I realized that she was too close. Only the fact that they were utterly focused on their meal had kept them from noticing her. That would change the instant she moved and once that happened… No, I really didn’t want to picture that.   
Of all the nasty things lurking in the Narrows that we could have run into today, Weepers were by far the worst. From my little vantage point, I could easily spot the bloody tears drawing crimson trails from their bloodshot eyes to mingle with the gore around their mouths. They’d taken a huge dose of Demons Tears, a virulent and dangerous drug that turned anyone who took it into a crazed berserker. Gangs liked to use it when they went to war with each other because it let you ignore any injury no matter how debilitating until your body just couldn’t function anymore. Not only were Weepers immune to pain, they were faster and stronger than a normal person. They would tear through anything that got in between them and their prey and they didn’t stop until everything around them was dead. There was no reasoning with them and no hope for mercy if you were stupid enough to try to surrender. All of their higher reasoning had been fried, leaving only a wild beast trapped in human flesh. Taken in smaller doses, the effects faded after a few minutes but these freaks had used far more than that. There’d be no coming back for them.  
I’d seen Weeper leavings before in the past, most scroungers had, and they were the sort of thing that burned itself into your brain. Life in the Narrows might be savage and brutal, but Weepers brought it to a whole new level of insanity. Thankfully, the drug itself was both expensive and rare. Most gangs also understood that using it was a double edged sword. Sure it might give them a distinctive edge in a fight but while on it, they were just as much a danger to themselves as their enemies.  
To have six Weepers here, so close to the procession… it was pretty much a worst case scenario which I knew hadn’t even been considered by our high ups. If any of them got out of this alley and into the crowds on the street beyond us… well, the term “massacre” just didn’t do justice to what would unfold. With the media there to record it all and Candidate DeLaCroix thrown into the mix, it just sort of made my head spin.   
The realization that we were going to have to fight them if we wanted to get out of here alive and stop a tragedy from unfolding hit me like a bucket of ice water. No one sane fought these things. You ran, you screamed and usually, you simply just died. I was all for the first two.  
“It’s Weepers Jade! Pull back. Mirage, call in a heavy strike!” My brother would understand the danger even if none of the others did and I could hear him swearing in horror at my revelation. A heavy strike would kill everything in the alley, including us if we didn’t get out fast enough but personally, I’d rather be quickly vaporized than torn to little bloody pieces. Especially if it meant that the Weepers would be taken out with me.  
“STOP!” Mirage yelled as she balanced herself precariously on the rubble pile while she held up her gun and took aim at the nearest Weeper. All six heads snapped up and crimson eyes focused on her with hungry intensity. Gore hung in wet sticky strands from their mouths and I could hear several of them hissing ferally.   
It was the worst thing she could have possibly done, proving that she really had no idea what she’d just leaped into. Bullets wouldn’t stop Weepers, they could still keep killing even with a whole clip emptied into them. Unfortunately Mirage was sticking to protocol and it stupidly dictated that she first had to demand their surrender. She had no way of knowing that they didn’t understand what she was saying, and didn’t care. All they knew was that she was squishy, loud and could easily be torn into tiny screaming pieces.   
“Just shoot!” I snarled into the comm as our options grew ever fewer. “Aim for their heads and shoot them! Don’t waste your time with warning or crippling shots!” My own gun was drawn but Mirage was in my line of fire.   
“We are NOT going to murder these people!” Powder yelled back over the link, utterly horrified that I’d even suggest something like that. This wasn’t doing much in the way of showing my team that I wasn’t some trigger happy psycho, but there was no way to convince them that I was right. It looked like we were about to learn the hard way.  
“Mirage, Get some high ground and shoot them in the head!”  
“Shade, you will shut up or I will have you-” She didn’t get a chance to finish her dire threat because the first of the Weepers leaped at her. The thing was already snapping at the air, blood stained teeth aimed at her throat. Pure reflex was likely the only thing that saved her life in that moment, making her fire her gun before she’d even realized the full extent of her danger. The round hit the Weeper in the shoulder and while it did throw him off balance, it didn’t seem to slow him down at all.   
He slammed into her full force, sending them both falling over backwards down the rock pile with Mirage on the bottom. She landed with bone jarring force as his weight pinned her beneath. Visibly stunned from the impact, she was unable to stop the maddened creature as he lunged at her face.   
Before he could bite down, his head exploded as my bullet smashed into his skull. Though silenced, my gun wasn’t anything to laugh at and the high caliber round reduced his chemically altered brain to little more than mulch. The force of impact alone burst the things eyes in his sockets, splattering our leader with a variety of disgusting fluids.  
I couldn’t have asked for a better hit and though he was dead, the things hands still tore mindlessly at her as the body took a few seconds to realize that it was nothing but meat. Unfortunately, the others were now up and moving.  
“SHOOT TO KILL!” I yelled, as they leaped forward, ready to finish what their buddy had started. It was naturally at this moment that I realized I was still on the ground and in easy reach should one come after me. Hadn’t Dragon already shown me just how vulnerable I was in an open fight? Now here I was picking on Weepers of all things! Maybe I really was just as crazy as they all said.  
Taking aim at the next one to make it over the junk barrier, I pulled the trigger. The angle was bad, causing my bullet to just graze its head, tracing a line of red through its flesh and tearing free a chunk of blood matted hair free. Bloodshot eyes; twin pits of hate focused on me and I looked into them. I’d never looked a Weeper in the eyes before and in their depths, I saw my death as a sure thing. Most people would have just folded at that point and become blubbering messes, but death and I were old friends. Instead of panicking, I felt my lips part in a wide face splitting grin every bit as mad as they were. If I was going to die, I was taking as many of them with me for company. It was time to dance.  
The thing coming after me had once been a woman, decent enough looking if you were into that sort of thing and large breasts flopped through the bloody tears in her ragged clothing. Matted filthy hair might have once been a rather pretty shade of coppery brown and I could see that she had a tattoo on her shoulder with a heart and someone’s name scrawled in it. Reading wasn’t my strong suit even at the best of times, but in that odd moment of clarity just before disaster, I read the name clearly. Kenny. Distantly, I wondered if Kenny was one of the guys currently trying to eat my senior officer or if he was sitting at home wondering where his lady was.  
My foot kicked her in the side of the head, knocking her to the side and opening her up for my next bullet which took her in the chest. I’d hit her left lung and blood sprayed out with every breath she took. In anyone else, that would have at least given them pause, but she twisted around and grabbed onto my foot with inhuman strength, nearly tearing my entire leg out of its socket. Her ragged nails tried to dig in through the hardened leather of my boot, slowly crushing the foot inside it and I could feel her body bunching up for another leap.  
My balance was thrown off and I knew that if I fell, it would be all over for me. The nearest window ledge was too high to jump up to, especially with the Weeper hanging onto me. It was the same for the fire escape, but I did manage to grab onto a piece of broken pipe sticking out of the wall over my head. Using that to help brace myself, I kicked out with my free foot, hitting my attacker square in the face. Teeth went flying but she didn’t seem to notice as she began to slowly climb her way up my leg. The boot was still protecting me, but once she got past that, I was going to be looking at some serious damage to my leg. Yeah, this was the stuff nightmares were made of. On the up side, if I survived this, I’d have a whole new set of exciting things to talk to my psychiatrist about.  
The shot came from off to the side, hitting her perfectly in the temple. Blood and brains sprayed all over my legs as her face disintegrated but her hands continued to hold onto me with crushing force. It took several kicks to try to knock her loose. By some miracle, I’d escaped with only minor injuries though my foot wasn’t thrilled about having weight put on it. Still, I was alive and she wasn’t. That was more than enough reason for me to celebrate.  
A grim laugh made it past my lips as I realized that only one gun could do that much damage in a single shot. I owed The Reaper a huge thank you when we got back to the barracks.  
“Sergeant, we need a perimeter set up immediately, nothing gets out of this alley alive.” I didn’t have the authority to make this call but right now I didn’t care. To hell with the chain of command. Our leader was currently buried under two hundred pounds of insane fury hell bent on eating her face. Civilian casualties were likely the last thing on her mind.   
As I spoke, I balanced myself carefully on my chunk of rock, pulled out my second pistol and took aim with both. Mirage was trying to grapple with her newest attacker and as expected, it wasn’t going well for her. I could see two bullet wounds in its shoulders and figured she’d tagged it before it had closed the distance. Currently, she was using her boot knife as a last ditch weapon. It had been driven up to the hilt in the Weepers neck but was doing little to slow it down. Her face was a mask of blood and froth, not all of it belonging to our opponents.   
Silent as death, Dragon waded into the fray, her sword sweeping in a great silvery arc as she drew a deep line of red in the back of the neck of the attacking Weeper. Though spine was all but severed, the thing still clung mindlessly to Mirage, refusing to release its prey. Dragon was visibly shocked and I could tell that she’d expected the thing to throw itself to the side in self defence or at the very least fall over from the mortal injury. The very idea of having an opponent utterly ignore her in favour of continuing a senseless attack was simply beyond any realistic scenario she’d ever encountered before.   
Being Dragon, she quickly recovered from her initial shock and simply reversed her swing. This brought her blade up between the two struggling forms and caught the madman in the chin. How she missed Mirage was beyond me, but her sword never slowed for a second as it sliced cleanly through the Weepers face, cutting it free from the rest of its skull. It was a grizzly sight as it fell onto Mirage’s face before flopping onto the dirt covered ground beneath her and I’m sure this moment would send Mirage to the base psychiatrists for many nights to come.  
The thing was dead, it had to be with half its brain exposed for the world to see, but as with the one which had attacked me, it still held onto our leader even into death, pinning her in place as its two friends closed in. Moving faster than any human being had a right to move, two of them leaped at her in near perfect tandem, one going high, the other low.   
Realizing the danger Mirage was still in, Dragon moved between her and the incoming attack, her bloody sword held at the ready. The first to step into range lost its arm just below the elbow but her inexperience with Weepers was telling. She was still expecting her opponent to react with some sense of self preservation. Instead, the madwoman didn’t even hesitate as she ran up the length of Dragon’s blade, skewering herself. Taking the blade in her lower ribs, it slid through her body with little resistance, allowing her to hit my teammate with nearly her full force. The second Weeper was right behind her and the impact of the two of them was more than even Dragon could handle. Her legs buckled even as she twisted the blade, trying to free it in time to defend herself. They were too fast for her, too unrelenting and she fell beneath them.   
Still fighting, I heard the wet snap of bone and saw a fresh spurt of crimson arc up over the struggling bodies, but I couldn’t tell who’d been wounded until I heard Dragon scream in agony. The female Weeper, in her frenzy had torn away the straps which held our jackets closed and had bitten into the now bared shoulder. Broken teeth were savaging once flawless tan flesh, reducing it to a ragged bloody mess. At the same time, a big male had gotten behind her and was doing his best to chew his way through the leather collar of Dragon’s armour.   
We needed to keep our distance. They were physically better than us in every way that mattered… so why was I suddenly leaping from my little perch and charging the damn things? This was the craziest most suicidal thing I’d ever done, but there was no hesitation in my steps as I raced towards the only person in my life other than my brother who’d seemed to care if I lived or died.  
Mirage was still down, pinned beneath the bulk of the dead Weeper but she was alive at least and struggling to be able to take aim with her gun. Blood poured out of the body above her, covering her face and blinding her, making any shot she took questionable at best and I could hear her swearing over the comm.   
A flurry of movement off to my side warned me of the last Weeper running around and I dropped down to the ground, bruising my knees as a heavy body slammed into me a millisecond later. The impact was jarring on my end, but it took the legs out from beneath the Weeper, letting his own momentum send him flipping nicely over my back.  
I didn’t have time to deal with this new attacker, but I also knew that ignoring him would end in my very messy death. All I could do was hope that Dragon could hold on just a few seconds longer. Yeah… a few seconds… something which I likely didn’t have seeing as how my brain seemed to have deserted me.  
“SUN YIN!!” My brother’s voice made the alley itself shake and I could hear the heavy pounding of his boots as he raced towards us. Apparently seeing his prospective lover being eaten alive was too much for him to hold his post, not that I could really criticize. On the plus side, the Weeper who’d just vaulted over me was in his way and couldn’t help but see the behemoth bearing down in him. It was impossible for the madman to ignore and he leaped at Jade with a crazed shriek.  
To give you an idea of just how strong these things were, I’d seen Jade charge through a wall once during battle. Yeah, he’d just about killed himself doing it, but he’d still managed it. This Weeper was about fifty pounds lighter than he was, and it stopped him dead in his tracks. The sound of the two bodies hitting each other was something you felt in your bones more than anything and the instant they made contact, the battle was on.   
Seeing my brother fight a Weeper was the sort of thing people in the Narrows would have paid good credits to see, but to me it was just one more nightmare coming true. I wanted to help him, to do something to swing the odds in his favour, but I knew that if Dragon died, he’d never forgive me.  
Pivoting around, I saw that our teammate was in rough shape. The one Weeper was twisting her arm as it chewed into her shoulder and judging by the angle of the limb, it was badly broken. Even as I took aim with my guns, I saw the creature give a vicious twist and to my horror, the arm was torn free from her body. Sun Yin shrieked in agony, it was one of the worst sounds I’d ever heard and with her remaining hand; she stabbed at her attacker with her boot knife. Though she succeeded in opening up the throat of her attacker as well as gouging out an eye, it was only a matter of time to see who died first from their wounds.   
Blood was spurting rhythmically from her ruined shoulder and I knew that we were out of luck. As for the second one attacking her, he was still behind her, using his weight to pin her in place while trying to push her down onto her stomach while still tearing at the back of her armour. It was just pure luck that he hadn’t broken her neck yet.   
“Powder! Get over here!” I yelled, not caring that I was calling our medic into almost certain death. I’d rather have him risk death than guarantee Dragons and thankfully, he seemed to agree because even as I started firing at the female Weeper, I saw him heading towards us.  
My first bullet hit the Weeper in the empty socket, throwing her head back and forcing her to spit out the chunk of Dragons shoulder that she was devouring. Amazingly, this time it didn’t kill her and she spun around to attack me. There was nothing even remotely human about her now. I could see raw bone laid bare where my bullet and Dragons knife had torn her open the left side of her face, creating a twisted rictus grin. Her ragged tongue hung out of her mouth, dangling by a thread and twitching wildly.  
All but roaring, I emptied my clip into that nightmarish face, watching it explode as bullet after bullet drilled into her. With each pull of the trigger, I drew closer to my teammate until I was by her side, my finger still tightening over and over despite the lack of bullets.   
Kicking the twitching body away, I pressed my hands over Dragons spurting shoulder, practically oblivious to the Weepers snapping jaws only a fingers width from my hands. Dammit! Where was Powder? He should be here! If he ran away I was going to kill him.   
From behind me, hands clad in black rubber disposable gloves moved over mine as bright blue eyes flashed me a look which clearly told me to finish my damn job and let him do his. My job… yeah…killing things.  
Wasting no time, I slammed the butt end of my gun into the temple of the remaining Weeper on Dragon. The thin bone over the things temple collapsed on impact, but it just kept on biting at her mindlessly as its fingernails dug deeply into her throat. There was so much blood that I couldn’t tell if it had hit something vital. What I did know was that Dragon was barely fighting now. Her eyes had rolled back in their sockets and her skin looked almost grey beneath the blood.   
This wasn’t going to accomplish anything and I knew it. Rather than trying to strike it again, I grabbed for one of my spare clips and slapped it into place. It took less than a second to aim and the bullet took off the lower portion of the Weepers jaw, rendering at least one of its weapons useless. Unfortunately, it still had more to bring to the party.  
The good thing was that my attack on the Weeper got its attention… the bad thing was pretty much the same as well. It snarled at me with its ruined lips and I could see jagged shards of bone sticking out through the skin as well as bits of broken teeth. I had just a moment to look the thing in the eyes and realize that I was about to seriously regret getting this close to this living nightmare before it lunged at me.   
I’ve fallen out of tenth story window once, hit just about everything you could think of on the way down to the rather unyielding ground. That fall was gentler than having this thing slam into me, driving me against the alley wall. Stars danced in front of my eyes as the air was knocked out of my lungs. All of those hours of rigorous fall training were the only thing which kept my head from slamming into the crumbling stone wall and ending this fight before it had even really started. Granted, that might not be much of a mercy. At least unconscious, I wouldn’t have to see the Weeper opening that broken mouth wide, ready to devour my face.  
Driving my knee up between the things legs, I knew that I hit hard enough to do some permanent damage but it didn’t even blink. A lucky hit on its part numbed my arm, keeping me from raising my gun high enough to do any good, but I didn’t dare let it go. Call me optimistic but I was sort of hoping that my arm would start working again before I died.   
My free hand grabbed at my weapons belt and I felt the handle of a knife. Normally I’d laugh at the idea of using this against someone on Demon’s Tears, but at this exact moment, I wasn’t about to be picky. The fact that it was missing most of its jaw saved me from losing my cheek as it tried to bite down, leaving me with a few ragged scratches instead of a gaping hole. Unfortunately, the thing swung its arm around, clipping me in already numb shoulder and grabbing onto my throat.   
Wasting no time, I drove the knife up beneath its jaw, feeling it pierce bone and brain. Please let it be enough! Darkness was edging my vision and I could hear something creaking ominously in my neck as the pressure grew more intense. Desperately I twisted the knife, trying to do enough damage to make this thing realize it was dead before the bones in my neck gave out. Hot red blood poured over my hands, making my grip slick but I continued to twist, ignoring the sharp bits of broken teeth being ground into my knuckles. Time was running out and I could feel my consciousness slipping away but this thing kept fighting.  
Just before darkness claimed me, I saw the Weepers head jerk sharply and felt a spray of blood along with the sting of bone shrapnel. My legs had given out and amusingly, the only thing keeping me up was the thing trying to kill me. I wasn’t sure if I was holding onto the knife anymore… my whole body was numb. Figures, I was going to die the same way I’d been born, in some nameless Narrows alley. Somewhere fate was laughing at me.  
Bright lights shone in my face, blinding me and the pressure was suddenly gone from my throat. The inrush of air was more agonizing than anything I’d felt in some time, but I embraced it with every ounce of my being and drew in a deep breath, then another. The light shattered into a hundred little glittering diamonds of colour which struggled to resolve themselves into shapes. Someone was standing over me… someone covered in blood.  
Reflexively, I kicked out and heard a satisfying grunt of pain as my boot connected with something solid. The figure vanished for a moment out of my field of vision but now sound came roaring in. Screams. Yelling. The sound of something being knocked over and a lot of boots stomping around. Yeah… welcome back to the land of the living.  
“Dammit Shade! I’m trying to help you!” It was Mirage and she sounded pissed. Not that I cared at this moment. My main concern was just making sure my lungs worked properly. Air in, air out… yeah, I was getting the hang of it again.   
As my head began to clear, I quickly became aware of all the other pain I was experiencing. My shoulder was screaming at me and with every breath, sharp pain lanced down my back. Glancing down, I saw that I was still holding the knife and it was still buried in the ruins of the Weepers head. Amusingly, it was the knife I’d lifted off that idiot in the crowd. I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. To be saved by a thing I’d taken on a whim, using the skills I’d learned as some lowly little slip in filthy alleys like this one.   
Really, the knife was a big ugly thing better used for intimidation than actual fighting, but I knew that I was going to keep the damn thing as one hell of a memento after this.   
My secondary gun was still clutched in my other hand and by the looks of it; I’d fired off a few rounds into my would-be killer. I had no memory of doing that, but hey, way to go me.  
Mirage was picking herself up off the ground from where I’d kicked her and she looked about as bad as I felt. Her face was a mess of scratches and she had a bad bite across her collarbone. A chunk of her hair had been torn out, scalp and all. It hung precariously attached by a small thread of flesh but I doubt she even noticed.  
“Next… next time… I tell you to ghost someone in the Narrows… Do it.” I forced the words out, fully aware that I would be reprimanded for it and not really caring. “Starting the heavy… with Weepers…” My legs wobbled like a cheap protein slab, but by clinging to the wall, I managed to keep them under me. “…and you call me baku.” Shaking my head made me want to vomit and the world spun in a sickening fashion for a moment. Taking several slow deep breaths seemed to steady things a little and I realized that I couldn’t make my fingers let go of my knife. Just as well I suppose, I was more than happy to keep holding onto the thing so long as someone detached it from that head. I didn’t fancy dragging the thing along with me.  
The alley seemed to give another worrisome little wobble as I straightened up, but I kept my balance and even managed to take a step or two before having to lean against the wall.   
There were people everywhere, military personnel mostly and they filled the area with bright lights and more noise than I wanted to deal with. Two flanked me, reaching out to help me stay standing and at their touch I swore, striking out in warning. I didn’t like being touched at the best of times, and this was most definitely not one of them. Thankfully the arm I swung out with was still holding the knife which was currently buried in Weeper skull so my attack was more of a sharp jerk of my shoulder rather than anything lethal. Part of me was aware of the big red “X”s on their uniforms and that they were likely trying to make sure I wasn’t seriously injured, but the bigger part just wanted to be left alone.  
“Shade, let them do their damn jobs.” Mirage gave me her usual “don’t cause a scene” glare and I knew that if I didn’t relent, she’d have me restrained or sedated. Possibly even both. Neither were options I wanted, so with gritted teeth, I wrenched the knife free from the skull with a wet shlupping sound and held my arms out at my sides. The fact that I was still holding a gun in one hand and a bloody knife in the other likely did little to encourage them to approach. Not my problem. Granted, the fact that I was still grinning like a madman didn’t help much either.  
Behind the medics, I saw more figures all clustered together, working frantically over something on the ground. My brothers hulking form towered over them, moving back and forth nervously. Dragon!  
Shouldering my way past the two medics, I raced over to the crowd only to have The Reaper get in my way. He was favouring his right leg and had a liberal soaking of blood across his chest, but he seemed to have come out of the fight in the best shape out of all of us.   
“Move it!” I hissed, wanting to make sure she was alright. Normally I’d have never spoken to The Reaper like this but my adrenaline was still pumping through my veins and I didn’t really care who I pissed off. Behind him, I could see that the medics gathered around our teammate were working frantically. All of them were bloody and I could still make out Powder’s golden head amongst them. Worried medics were never a good sign and I was more than ready to shove my way past him to get to her.  
“There isn’t anything you can do for her. Let them do their job.” He was trying to sound compassionate but at this moment all I cared about was moving him aside.   
“We got more attacks!” The ranking medic shouted over the others, striding towards us… or specifically, Mirage. “How many of your squad is still mobile?”   
She looked torn for about half a second before quickly taking visual stock of us all.  
“We’re good to go.” Her reply sounded more confident than she likely felt. Maybe I really was crazy, because I should have been horrified at the idea of racing into battle after what just happened, especially if more Weepers were involved. Instead, I wiped my knife clean on the leg of my uniform, sheathed it and snapped fresh ammo cartridges into my guns. Around me, the rest of my team was straightening themselves up as best they could.  
Jade had a broken nose, many scratches and bite wounds and was favouring his right shoulder. His dark eyes kept straying nervously towards Dragons fallen form but he was managing to keep it together for the moment. As for myself, I was pretty sure my ankle was sprained; my brain was mildly concussed and I likely had a cracked rib or three. We all looked exhausted and nowhere near as spry as we’d been at the start of this mess, but we’d kept going before in situations just as hazardous. None of us were going to back down now.  
“Powder can’t leave Dragon in this state.” None of us argued that point despite the fact it meant going forward without our medic. Keeping our teammate alive was more important right now. We could worry about the future later.  
“We’ve got two squads on hand at the site, what we need are reinforcements. Get over there now and back them up.” We were already moving before the medic had a chance to finish speaking. Mirage was yelling into her comm, likely apprising our sergeant of the situation.   
As we burst out of the alley, I could see that the crowds were still thick but that up ahead, the parade guards seemed to have pulled together around the motorcade. The media drones were buzzing around wildly, realizing that something had changed but they hadn’t located the source of the problem yet.  
It was a good thing that our black uniforms made the blood hard to see unless we brushed against someone. It let us slip by those practically all seeing drone eyes and most people were simply too busy craning their necks to see Candidate DeLaCroix to pay any attention to boring old us. It was one of the few things working in our favour at the moment.   
“So fearless leader, are you actually going to let me go in first this time?” I asked over the radio with perhaps a tad more snark in my voice than was necessary. Mirage glanced over her shoulder at me but rather than look angry, she seemed rather chastised. Her overconfidence had possibly cost us one of our best members and she wasn’t about to try to pass the blame off on anyone else. While I admired that about her, I was still more than a little angry at how easily this could have been avoided in the first place. Bouncing back with her usual ease, Mirage looked like she was giving herself a stern internal lecture before she straightened up and looks at us all with a good impression of her usual confidence.  
“Shade, you and Reaper take the high ground.” Finally! “Hammer, you and I are on the ground. We need to keep them in the alleys no matter what. Keep it as quiet as possible, these streets are clogged with people and if they panic…” No need to elaborate on that one, our imaginations could easily fill in the blanks for us.  
“This is blown bad.” I spoke up as I headed towards the nearest building and began to shimmy up the drain pipe and crumbling walls with familiar ease.  
“Yes, I get that Shade, let’s stop laying blame and focus on the task at hand.” Mirage snapped sharply, her fraying temper giving her voice a new edge.   
“No, you don’t ken.” Maybe I should have been a little more polite about it, but I was never one for manners in a firefight. It was something else for Dragon to lecture me about if she survived. “This ain’t slick. Weepers tear people apart, they don’t eat em.” Sure they might use their teeth when they attacked, but it was just part of their crazed rage rather than driven by the need to consume. While it likely didn’t make things any better for their victims, this new development seemed to be little more than a whole new level of crazy.   
The drug didn’t make Weepers into cannibals, unless maybe these freaks were already enjoying a taste of the city’s most plentiful protein source before taking it, the drug wouldn’t induce new eating habits. No, even that scenario didn’t feel right. Sure there were cannibals in the Narrows, I even knew of a gang of scavengers who were about the best fed freaks around, but these Weepers hadn’t looked like them. They had been skin and bones, even their muscles had melted away to sustain their bodies which likely wouldn’t have happened if they were eating other people. Ugh, I wasn’t any good at this sort of thing. This was more Powder and Dragons territory, but neither of them was here and Mirage simply didn’t know how things worked down here in the cities bowels.   
“It’s usually just gangs using the Tears when they want to bring the heavy.” I continued, trying to make my concerns understood. “Ain’t no way those slads were with a gang. They ain’t got no colours or tags and there ain’t no tell of no gangs starving themselves and stripping down to rags before dosing up. I just don’t ken it.”   
As I talked, I climbed. The old and ill fitted buildings gave me ample handholds, allowing me to ascend far faster than my team was moving seeing as how they had to make their way through the congested street. At this rate, I’d arrive nearly the same time they did.   
“You talk too much Shade.” The Reaper grunted as he climbed up behind me, following the path I took as well as his much larger frame could manage. While he had a much greater reach than I did, his weight made many of my handholds a dangerous prospect.  
“Just sayin that this ain’t flush.” I repeated myself, more for my own benefit now than anyone else’s. It felt like I was missing something important, like I was being conned but there just wasn’t time to figure out where the trick was.   
One last pull put me on the roof and I paused for several seconds to look around for Sparrow markings. While they loved setting their traps, they also were good enough to mark their territory; warning away would be trespassers before taking their lives. It was rather polite of them really, but thankfully I didn’t see any. This particular roof was a little too low for their usual haunts. We were only about fifteen stories up; they tended to prefer territory in the twenty and above height.  
“All clear up above.” That should make The Reaper happy at the very least but I didn’t wait around to find out. Instead I was already off and running towards the fight, leaping across the gulf between this building and the next. So long as you didn’t make the mistake of looking down, it was a simple enough trick, especially since the wind wasn’t blowing too hard and it hadn’t rained in a week. I couldn’t ask for better roof walking conditions.  
The telltale glint of a fine wire around a few ragged shingles made me pause long enough to fish through the little bag on my hip and drop a bright blue painted pebble down at my feet before I leaped over the area, careful to avoid the trap. It seemed that Sparrows weren’t the only people laying claim to some of the roofs here.  
“Trap on the second roof to the south. Marked.” I sounded off, confident that Reaper would see my stone. If we’d had time, I’d have disarmed it, but the sniper was easily skilled enough to avoid it especially now that I’d pointed it out for him. My duty done, I took off once again, eager to make up for lost seconds.  
“Phase Squad is taking casualties.” Mirage reported. “Blight Squads corporal is down. ETA one minute.”  
“Dammit, Shadow owes me ten credits!” I grumbled loudly. “I’ll be there in thirty seconds. Tell Shadow not to die before he pays up!” I’d never admit it to their faces, but the idea of losing Phase squad was one I didn’t want to consider. Not only were they good, they were familiar to me and their loss would be a terrible blow to the military. If Shadow got killed… No, I wasn’t even going to think about the hole that would leave in my life and I wasn’t even meaning just the loss of credits. We’d worked hard to get a decent rivalry going and if he threw that away by dying… I was going to kill him!   
Two more traps were spotted and marked but still no sign of Sparrows. If I’d still been living here, this would have been valuable information to sell to them. Someone was moving in and wasn’t exactly being subtle about it either. For about ten seconds, I was torn as to whether this was a brave or suicidal strategy, then I came across the bodies.   
There were four of them, I’d say young, but three of them were older than I was. My guess was that they were in their late teens, the fourth was a little girl who looked about twelve and chances were that she was sibling to one or more of them.   
Typical Naz, their skin was roughly the same colour as mine and their hair varied from medium brown to a dull black. Thin, dirty and ill dressed, they could have easily been my siblings. In fact they looked more like me than Jade did. One of the older girls had some jewellery which was unusual for the Narrows. This wasn’t the sort of place where you wanted to draw attention to yourself. It only brought trouble. Case and point.   
They’d been shot which was unusual considering how rare guns were here. Even topside they were only carried by powerful criminals or the law. Low down gutter trash could easily go their entire lives never seeing one and those who did have them certainly wouldn’t have wasted the bullets on this lot.  
By their positions, I could see that they’d been taken by surprise while eating their dinner. The cloth spread out on the roof in the middle of the bodies still held some half rotted scraps and a mottled looking can of murky water. It was a veritable feast by Narrows standards, one they hadn’t gotten to enjoy.   
The two oldest had bullet holes in the very center of their heads. Neat and precise, whoever had done it knew what they were doing and these two were likely the first to die. A slightly younger looking boy had taken one slug in the back and a second in the head. The little girl had taken the bullet in her chest and it looked like she’d actually tried to run.   
“Ugh… Mirage, something’s blown up here…” I murmured, wanting to keep racing ahead to the fight but my instincts were screaming at me that this was important. Still staring at the bodies, I barely heard The Reaper come up next to me.  
“You do this?” I was too distracted by what I was seeing to be insulted. It was the food I decided after a moment. Aside from some mould and some blood, it looked just fine. Bugs hadn’t even settled on it yet, meaning that this had happened recently, far more recently that I was comfortable with. Just to be sure, I pulled the glove off of one of my hands and checked the body of the little girl. She was still warm. The blood was still slowly leaking out of her wound. What the hell was going on here?  
“Make it quick Shade, we’re kind of busy here!” Our corporal didn’t sound overly thrilled by my less than optimistic assessment of things. Granted, it really wasn’t one of her better days so I wasn’t going to give her any more flack.   
“Got four rotters up here. Roofwalkers ghosted all slick. They was shot and I ken we just missed who did it.” There was some muffled swearing on her end though it sounded as if she had tried to keep it from transmitting over the comm. I really wasn’t the bearer of good news today. Calmly listening to her rant, I pulled the glove back on and gave the roof a quick scan for any clues the killers might have left.  
“Could it have been Phase Squad?” Yeah, like we could be so lucky. The only one who’d be roof walking would be Shadow and I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t the sort to just go gunning people down without warning unless they were posing a threat to his squad. It was a safe bet that four unarmed kids eating their supper weren’t much of a threat to anyone. This was someone else’s work and I didn’t like the timing it implied.  
“No. Heads up, I ken you’re about to add snipers to your list of heavy raining down on you.” There was no question as to whose side they were on. Following my train of thought, The Reaper slung his gun off his shoulder and quickly snapped on the scope and muzzle with his usual brisk efficiency. The look on his face was grim though it was impossible to miss the spark of excitement in his eyes.  
Giving him a quick nod, I took off once again, heading towards the fight, knowing that this was quickly devolving into yet another worst case scenario. Being already down two of our members, we couldn’t afford a single mistake.   
We both slid down a sharp incline which dropped us three stories and I was suddenly very glad for the grapple and rope because the next roof was a full nine stories lower. It was a rarity for the Narrows but I wasn’t going to complain because it put us that much closer to our teammates. Personally I hadn’t fancied trying to shoot accurately down at a fight taking place a few hundred feet below me.   
“Enemy sighted, we have… we have seven of these Weeper guys. I’ve got eyes on Shadow, Virago, Jester and Moonboy, looks like the others are down. ETA Squad two?” I’m guessing Mirage meant us.  
“Just coming up on your alley now. Establishing cover in ten seconds.” Blight squad had been hit hard if only Jester was still up and Phase sounded in pretty rough shape. Both were our equals in ability but we’d been lucky that I’d realized what our opponents were quickly enough to save lives. No one in either of the other groups was from the Narrows. The Weepers must have torn right through them before they realized the danger they were in.   
The Reaper got into position before I did and readied his weapon. Standing on the crumbling edge of the roof, I positioned myself next to an old utility ladder and looked down into yet another bloodbath.   
There aforementioned blood everywhere as well as several bits of meat which had until recently belonged to people I’d known. Someone was on their back and trying to crawl away from the Weeper tearing into them. Dressed in nearly identical outfits as my squad, the yellow accents on the black leather identified them as Blight Squad though I couldn’t see who it was because most of their face was gone. The Weeper was still holding onto their severed leg and was using it as a weapon to beat the already fallen man.  
Though the downed soldier was still holding their firearm, they weren’t shooting with it, likely having expended their clip already into their unfeeling attacker. Luckily for them, I had a full clip ready to go but as I raised my gun, the Weepers head disappeared into a gory red mist, courtesy of The Reaper.  
I could see Mirage and Jade just entering the alley. Having learned some important lessons from her first encounter, Mirage was hanging back and her gun was drawn. The trick was going to be shooting the Weepers without hitting our own guys and I seriously hoped that she was up for the challenge. Jade was taking the more direct route and wading into the fight, making me swear under my breath. Even from up here I could see how furious he was. They’d hurt and possibly killed Dragon, he wasn’t about to let that slide. Coupled with his apparent belief in his own immortality, this likely wouldn’t end well.  
With a roar, he charged the nearest Weeper who was tearing into one of Phase squad. His huge hand balled into a fist that hit with all of the power of a truck. The Weeper had been so intent on devouring its victim that it hadn’t heard him coming and the impact sent the madman flying a good ten feet backwards. Landing awkwardly, with one arm bent badly beneath them, the crazed man hopped back up to his feet and charged my brother, letting out his own enraged shriek of challenge.  
The immovable object met the unstoppable force with much the expected result. Even from up on my perch, I could hear bone shattering. The Weepers arm bent in three different places nature had never intended as the punch landed dead center on Jades chest armour but to my horror, the armour actually buckled. Stumbling back a step, Jade coughed up a thick bloody froth before reaching out his hands and catching the Weepers next punch before it could connect. Though he easily outweighed his enemy by at least a hundred kilos of pure muscle, I could see him straining with exertion. His other hand shot out, catching the Weepers throat before it could lunge forward and begin using its teeth. For a moment, all I could do was watch in awe at the mindboggling display of strength taking place below me. I’d never really had a chance to see Jade truly cut loose on someone and I had to admit, it was shocking to say the least. Unfortunately, the Weeper was slowly drawing closer, his bloody mouth snapping wildly, eager for the taste of more living meat.  
Knowing that I had to do something to help, I took careful aim at the things head and pulled the trigger. The round hit the Weeper in the shoulder, creating a rather impressive crater in the muscle but not killing it. The arm folded under the additional damage and I felt my eyes widen in shock as Jade actually twisted around, tearing the ruined limb free of the madman’s shoulder and swinging it around like a club. As weapons went, it wasn’t the best choice and it did little more than irritate his opponent who snapped at the offending limb, not realizing it was its own arm. Intimidation wasn’t going to work with these enemies and I hoped that Jade remembered that before he got himself killed.  
Taking aim once again, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and I realized that I wasn’t nearly as safe as I’d thought I was. Images of those kids with the bullet holes in their heads flickered behind my eyes and I rolled to the side just in time to hear something hit the ladder next to me and ping off. It didn’t have the force of a bullet but I doubted that it had the best intentions towards my continued health.  
Though dangerously close to the edge, I ignored the yawning abyss below in favour of scanning the roof. Other than The Reaper, there wasn’t anyone else up here and I knew that he certainly hadn’t shot at me.  
“Heads up.” I murmured softly over the comm. “We’ve got a trial up here.”   
“Then shut up and take care of it. I’m busy.” The Reaper replied, calmly firing off another round and most likely ghosting yet another Weeper for the group down below. Right… take care of it…  
Doing my best to trace the path the projectile had taken, I was pretty sure that it had come from this roof rather than one of the much taller ones around us. That was small comfort really. I mean sure, they weren’t going to be raining death from above onto us, but it’s not as if there were many places to hide up here.   
The building was one of the older ones in the area, likely a few hundred years old and I could see where new structures had been built over the skeletal framework of the old. The roof had once been a decent quality reinforced plasteel, tarred over and patched so many times that it was likely a foot thick. While old, whoever had designed it had been clever, allowing it to slope gently downwards from a central peak so that the rainwater would slide off into collection gutters. It likely supplied most of the building with drinking water during the wet months and helped them out during droughts with condensation.   
The central vent at the roofs peak was part of the original building and made of actual stone. That meant that it had been built way back when resources had still been plentiful and this building likely offered much better protection against the elements than most of its surrounding neighbours.   
Our shooter had to be hiding behind the vent. It was tall enough to hide someone if they crouched and thick enough to stop a bullet if I tried to shoot through it, making it the only really logical choice. Not daring to take my eyes off of it, I began to carefully circle my way around the barrier, watching for any telltale signs of movement or irregularities which would reveal the shape of my shooter. Each silent step drew me closer to my target as my circle tightened and though I ached to help out my brother and our squad, I knew that they’d be helpless if our enemies managed to get position on them.  
The instant I was close enough to leap on top of the vent, I did so. A fierce grin of victory spread across my face only to fade into one of utter confusion as I stared at the empty space. No, no way. No one could have snuck away without me noticing! Standing there, fully exposed for any idiot who might want to take a pot shot at me, I stared at the surrounding buildings, wondering if somehow I’d been wrong and our shooter was somewhere up above. I was going to feel like a complete idiot when they blew my stupid head off my shoulders. Some scout I was; couldn’t even locate a bad guy on an empty roof.  
Frowning, I looked around again and felt that same crawling sensation across the back of my neck. The shooter was still around… watching. A soft click off to my right made me spin around and leap off my perch, but not before I felt a jolt of impact. Crouching low and using the vent as cover, I spared myself a quick glance to make sure that nothing vital had been hit. Frowning, I reached down and pulled a small dart free from the thick material of my jacket. It had hit near my chest and gotten caught in the folds. I suppose my luck was still holding.   
Made from a dull grey plasteel, the main body was a rounded cylinder about the same length as a finger bone. Tufted on one end with dark fluffy things, the other end sported a rather long and nasty looking needle, the tip of which was slick with something.   
I was more than a little confused. In my few months of military service, I’d been shot at more times than I cared to count, but this was the first time someone had tried to dart me. Wasn’t that the sort of thing you did if you were trying to drug someone?... Drug…  
My mind was quickly going to a very terrible place and the hand holding the dart began to tremble noticeably. It was bad enough that I’d been right about this whole mess, but this was just insane!  
“Mirage!” I hissed into the comm. “Do any of the Weepers have darts sticking out of them?” She likely wasn’t close enough to see, but I had to ask. As I spoke, I shoved the dart into one of my belt cases, taking care to not have it be the same one the roach was in. With my luck, the dart would prick the bug and I’d have an insane super strong cockroach attached to my hip… as if my day wasn’t messed up enough.  
There was no reply on her end, leaving me to wonder if I dared to break cover and try to look over the edge to see how they were doing. Taking that dare, I shifted slightly, risking a glance out at the expanse of roof around me. Empty. Gathering myself for a leap to the left, I took a chance and feinted to the right and had the satisfaction of hearing another dart slam into the ground where I would have landed.  
I’d been right, they were on the roof, but I still couldn’t see anyone. This was nuts! There was no way that my enemies were invisible! That sort of thing just didn’t happen outside of stupid vids that Powder liked to watch.  
Unfortunately, while my eyes continued to remain convinced that no one was there, the evidence was quickly mounting towards the contrary. Someone was up here with us and whether I accepted it or not, they were invisible. Worse, they had a gun armed with Demon’s Tears and they were shooting at me. Yeah, I was pretty much fed up with the amount of crazy the night was throwing at us and was ready to just go back to the barracks. At least they hadn’t gotten it into their heads to shoot Jade with that junk. He was already an unstoppable juggernaut. Giving him the crazed strength and speed of a Weeper would cause citywide destruction.  
“That was the down low wasn’t it?” I spoke to the empty air, my eyes darting back and forth, searching for any hint of their location. “Jack some poor slads up on Tears and turn em loose, then hit up the Long Arm when we showed up. Get a bunch of armed and armoured Weepers to bring the heavy.” As I spoke, I jumped around like an idiot, never staying in one place for a moment and changing direction as randomly as I could. The instant I stopped moving, they’d dart me and I really didn’t want to be insane.  
Though I was pretty much babbling, the plan made a certain sort of psychotic sense to me. Cause some chaos out of sight of the main body of security to draw over the perimeter guard. Once we were driven insane, we’d tear through the crowd mercilessly and cause no end of chaos. Maybe they’d hoped that it would give them a shot at shooting Candidate DeLacroix or they were simply trying to discredit the military in the most public way possible. I wasn’t a fan of either one personally, especially since it meant that I’d be turned into a drooling freak of nature.  
“I got the joy of you putting the eyes to me, I really do.” I continued, noting how the soft tar of the roof depressed slightly just off to my left. If it hadn’t been for the angle of light from the street, I might have missed it “But tell is that everyone kens that I’m baku already. I ain’t needing the boost.” Oh yes, lets further antagonize the psycho with the dart gun. This little scout was clearly well on the right track to becoming just another mortality statistic.   
Despite the babble, I actually did have a plan but most of it entailed keeping their attention on me rather than on say…The Reaper or my squad down below. See? I could be a team player when it mattered.  
My hand had slipped into the pouch with my little blue stones, grabbing a handful as I continued to leap and twist like a drunken dancer. With one smooth movement, I threw the stones, sending them scattering in a wide arc in front of me. Most of them went wild, hitting the roof and skittering over the side, but several seemed to bounce off of something in midair before falling. My grin of victory was both wide and well earned.  
“Gotcha.” There was the sharp hiss of a gun firing at close range and red exploded all around me as the invisible shooter was punched full of bullets. Dropping flat to the roof took some of the wind out of my proverbial sails as I did my best to stay out of the line of fire and I heard a sharp “tink” as a dart embedded itself in the roof right in front of my nose. The fluff on the end of it quivered almost playfully as I stared at it, trying to not panic at how close I’d just come to a very messy end.  
From my vantage point, I saw two other shimmers flit across the roof in a quick retreat. Just beyond the dart, surrounded by a rough circle of pretty blue stones lay a body. Blood poured out of the gaping hole in the man’s chest, staining the strange cloth garment he wore. Edging cautiously closer, I saw that it was some sort of bodysuit made of a very fine weave. Even as I watched, its surface seemed to flicker, creating a perfect image of the roof beneath it and making it impossible to focus on. Then, there was a slight spark along the edge of the man’s wound and the cloth fizzled, becoming a rather ordinary and nondescript grey. This happened twice while I stared, my brain still trying to grasp the reality of what I was seeing.  
I’d never seen tech like this and had always thought that such things would be impossible to achieve. Clearly I was dead wrong and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel just a slight flash of jealousy. I mean, this was incredible and in the hands of a good scout, we’d be unstoppable. Instead, this maniac was wearing it and doing his best to cause chaos. It really wasn’t fair when you thought about it.  
“Gratz for ghosting him Reaper.” I glanced over at my cohort only to find that he’d turned his attention back to the living beneath us. Racing over to the edge, I saw that the fight was pretty much over. The Reaper was picking off the last surviving Weeper, dropping it less than a foot away from Shadows downed form. Breathing out a small sigh of relief, I could see that my rival looked alive and intact which was more than I could say for many of the others. I’d never admit it out loud, but seeing that he was still alive and kicking made me want to sag down to my knees in thanks.  
The alley itself was had been painted liberally with red. Broken bodies lay strewn about everywhere, several of whom were still screaming in agony as some medics raced into the alleyway the instant Mirage announced that it was secure. Naturally, my eyes immediately sought out the remainder of my squad and I saw Jade leaning heavily against the wall. He was covered in blood and I could see that he was heavily favouring his right leg and was breathing with difficulty. One hand clung to the wall, holding him up while the other was pressed against his dented chest plate. My guess was that he was sporting a few broken ribs from that one punch, but the armour had likely saved his life. He’d better realize just how lucky he was to have survived because if he ever tried to take a Weeper on with his bare hands again, I was going to shoot him myself.  
Mirage was on the ground, her left leg was broken and she was clutching a thick bloody chunk of concrete in her hands as if she’d forgotten how to let go. At her feet was the shattered body of a Weeper. It looked like she’d emptied her clip into him and then finally been reduced to bludgeoning him to death. It was an impressive kill but she looked more disgusted than proud as she waved away the medic who came to check on her.   
She preferred complete victories and this one had danced far too close to total failure for her liking. Too many of us had been killed or hurt and I knew that especially in Dragon’s case, she was blaming herself.   
“Mirage, I got a rotter up here. He’s got some flash tech toys and set himself up to put the eyes on the alley to snipe you all-” The little light in the corner of my vision which told me that my visor was recording flicked off and there was a certain eerie silence over my comm which warned that it too was dead.   
Tapping the side of the visor, I checked the battery power but found that I still had five hours left of transmission. Or at least I would have transmission if my connection was still operational. I’d been muted. Now, normally when that sort of thing happened, it was because I was being a pain in the ass and Mirage just decided that it was quiet time for Shade, but this wasn’t that sort of time. There was no way that the corporal would risk losing track of me when the area was still just too dangerous, especially with her and Jade pretty much out of the fight.   
A quick glance at The Reaper showed that he was also tapping the side of his visor, his thin lips turned down into a concerned frown. Confused, I took a step towards him and then let out a startled yelp as the pressure around us grew to crushing levels and nearly knocked me off my feet.  
Looking up, I could see a dark skycab descending rapidly, nearly on top of us. All of its guide lights were off, making the vehicle nearly invisible and though its powerful thrusters scoured the roof around us, it was strangely silent. Both of us quickly scrambled away from the edge of the building, not wanting to risk being blown over the side as it stopped about twenty feet above us and we kept our bodies pressed as low as we could to the ground. Breathing was quickly becoming a struggle and I knew that if it got any lower, we’d start taking internal damage.   
It took a certain level of thoughtlessness to try to land a cab this close to people and though I recognized the general shape of the vehicle to be Military, there wasn’t a decal declaring the sector or branch which was more than a little odd.   
Clinging desperately to the roof, my already abused body protested the continuing crushing pressure but there wasn’t much I could do but watch as hatches on both sides of it opened. Five heavily armoured figures hopped out and dropped the remaining distance down to us. Powerful shock absorbers hissed inside the armour as they landed in perfect synchronism, trailing thin micro cables behind them. High powered guns were already drawn and trained on us, leaving no question as to their intentions.  
“Release your weapons and stay on the ground with arms and legs spread.” It was a woman’s voice and had that “just give me a reason” tone to it that I’d learned to dread as a child on the streets. She was the sort who would shoot without a moment’s hesitation despite the clear military logos on our armour. While I would have loved to be able to point out that getting up off the ground wasn’t much of an option at this point, I doubted she’d appreciate cheekiness. Instead, I flicked my wrist, sending my guns skittering across the roof to lodge in the gutter before doing my best to spread my arms without losing my tenuous purchase.   
While my pride raged at my meek surrender, instincts honed by years of dancing on the edge of danger knew that this was the only way to survive the next few minutes. Behind me, there was a clank and shuffle as The Reaper did the same. Apparently neither one of us felt particularly stupid tonight.   
“We have two witnesses detained on the rooftop.” The woman spoke, likely relaying information to her hidden superiors. “No, Military. Phantom Squad. Yes, their sniper and scout. Do you wish them to be dealt with?” As she spoke, I eyed the gutter where my gun had landed. Getting to it with those guns already aimed at us was enough of a problem, but I knew that if I got anywhere near the edge, I’d likely be tossed off and we were still high enough to be unpleasant on the landing. Still, if it came to that or laying here and being shot, I’d take my chances and I was sure that The Reaper would be right there with me. Thankfully, it looked as if we were going to be left alive judging by the fact that they didn’t fire when their leader flashed her squad a gesture I didn’t recognize.   
Once the immediate threat of death was gone, confusion and intimidation quickly faded into simmering anger and a burning curiosity. The two gunmen kept their weapons trained on us while the others surrounded the body of our attacker and quickly wrapped it up in a tarp. The darts which had been buried in the roof were picked up, as were any small scraps of that strange cloth. Once they had everything, one of the figures pulled out an odd canister and began spraying where the body had landed and the surrounding area. I wasn’t sure what exactly it was supposed to do, but the sharp scent of ammonia filled my nose.   
Two of the figures attached a rope to the wrapped body and as I watched, they raised it up along with them into the waiting skycab. Only once it had been successfully loaded and the two figures up above once again had us in their sights did the other three figures climb their own ropes.  
In less than two minutes, it was all over. There was no evidence at all that anyone other than The Reaper and I had been up here and I grit my teeth in frustration. Why would they cover up an attack on the Military? It didn’t make sense at all.   
We both watched mutely as the skycab gain altitude once again before silently flying off over the rooftops. The pressure blasting down on us lessened quickly, allowing us to move and breathe without hindrance. Only once it was out sight did the little lights in our visors flickered back to life. Our comms were active once again.  
“They took the evidence.” I all but growled. The Reaper made no sound in answer though I could feel his tension crackling behind me and I knew that he was just as furious about this situation as I was. It was a cover up. I could see that clearly enough and it made me wonder just what exactly I should report.  
“Shade, Reaper. Sound off, what was that disturbance up top?” It was Mirage and if she hadn’t seen the skycab then I was pretty sure that no one else had either. This just got worse and worse and I had a feeling that if we said the wrong thing we’d likely find ourselves brought up on charged for falsifying a report or worse.  
“Er… We encountered hostiles.” I chose my words carefully, taking the time to actually enunciate my words and speak without my usual thick accent. It was harder than it sounded and I desperately hoped that Mirage and more importantly, the sergeant would pick up on that and realize that something big was up. “They managed to escape capture. What is the situation with Candidate DeLaCroix?” In the end, I suppose that he was the only one who really mattered.  
The comm on Mirage’s end was silent for a long moment as she took note of my sudden verbal skills.  
“The Candidate has chosen to end the tour early and return to the Citadel. Two other sections came under attack. There were heavy losses but the situation is still contained. Blight Squad has been terminated and Phase Squad is at half capacity. We’re being recalled back to the Citadel while it is being dealt with. Are you both in condition to descend to ground level?” Great, so there were still Weepers running around and if there were snipers running about with more of those drugs, several of them were now wearing military grade armour. This was about as bad a situation as one could get, but rather than being sent back out, we were being told to go home. If only I could pretend to be surprised by this…  
“Yeah, we can get down.” Getting cautiously to my feet, I grabbed my guns out of the gutter and checked the utility ladder to ensure that it would hold my weight, or more specifically, The Reapers. Impressively, it was secure and I all but slid down to the ground, landing with my usual silence.  
Risking a quick glance around, I could see that everyone was too busy tending to the wounded and examining the dead to be bothered with me. I walked over to Mirage and knelt down at her side, offering my shoulder for her to prop herself up. Once again, this sort of thing was totally out of character for me and my squad knew my rather violent dislike for any sort of physical contact. I could feel her tense against me in surprise but she didn’t fight it or make any sign of awareness when I slipped the dart into her own belt pouch. Her poker face was without peer as she let me help her out of the alley. Jade and The Reaper followed behind us, the former full of confusion and questions, but wise enough to hold his peace until we were out of earshot.   
Beyond the alley, it was a strange sort of orderly chaos as the area was being cleared of people. The more impressively armoured troops had moved in and weren’t bothering to be overly subtle about the “Get lost” vibe they were sending. Thankfully, decades of oppression had long ago taught the people of the Narrows to just do what the nice heavily armed people said and they faded quickly into back alleys without a fight. Media drones zipped all around and one nearly slammed into us as it raced into the alleyway, following a troop of paramedics. This was prime material for all the viewers at home and they wanted to get every gory bit.  
There were several ambulances standing by, red “X”s boldly emblazoned on their shining hulls. People… and parts of people were quickly being loaded onto them. More ominous was the black vehicle next to it bearing the sigil for the Rommell Sectors military Citadel. Pieces of those who hadn’t survived were being tossed into its rear bay. They would be sorted out later and the Weepers would no doubt be studied in exhaustive detail. A few scavengers lurked at the mouths of alleys, eyeing the harvest jealously and I knew that the minute the Military moved out, the alley would be picked clean of anything portable. Organic, tech or recyclable, they would find value in all of it.  
For us, we had a skycab waiting and it felt rather empty with only the remainder of the three squads inside. There were too many empty chairs and all of us did our best not to stare at them. Everyone’s usually dark swarthy skin was chalky looking with shock and the air was thick with questions which no one dared to ask. What the hell had happened was likely at the top of everyone’s list. Needless to say, the ride back to the barracks was arduous and I wasn’t looking forward to the debriefing at all. For once I didn’t even trade banter or insults with Shadow, though I did give him a few covert looks of concern. Most of the blood covering his face and body wasn’t his, but after seeing his squad get torn apart, I don’t think he cared much about his own injuries.  
We could hear the news feed on the cabs communication grid as the networks began gleefully reporting about the “incident.” Speculation was flying all over the place but several Candidates, especially the Overseer were condemning Candidate DeLaCroix for his foolishly prideful and dangerous actions which put not only himself at risk needlessly, but cost the military the lives of many good men and women. It was considered to be a great waste of resources and several networks were already speculating about the possibility of charges being brought against the Candidate.  
The Military itself was being praised for their prompt actions and selfless dedication towards the protection of the people of the Narrows though the Networks all made it sound as if the Naz really hadn’t deserved such sacrifice. I could practically hear the gears turning towards another “cleansing” of the most notorious district in the entire city.  
The whole thing turned my stomach and I wanted to talk about my suspicions, to ask my team what they thought of all of this as well as what they’d seen. While I might hold a lot of the pieces of the puzzle, I was under no illusion of being the brains of our team and this was way over my head. The big question however was exactly how much did I dare share with the others? The instant I told them, their lives would clearly be at risk, but if I didn’t then none of us would be ready for those mysterious freaks when we ran into them again.  
Despite our desire for answers no one dared to utter so much as a word. Not while in the skycab which would record every sound and gesture we made. Even as we exited and handed over our weapons and visors for analysis, I stayed quiet. Instead, I calmly helped Mirage limp towards the medbay while The Reaper guided my brother. Personally, I could have used some help myself. Sitting still in the skycab had given my many injuries a chance to speak up and I was now all too aware of just how banged up I was at this point.  
Being in the Citadel Barracks still didn’t grant us any privacy. There were the inevitable security drones always zipping around inconveniently as well as ever watchful cameras situated in nearly every corner of the facility. They scanned us constantly for weapons, contraband and could easily pick up anything we said. Instead of heading directly to medbay, I led us on a slight detour towards an area which I knew through various less than honest means had spotty coverage. Thankfully it wasn’t too far away from our destination to look overly suspicious.  
“What did you slip me back there?” Mirage hissed softly through clenched teeth the instant we were within the little pocket of privacy, showing that I wasn’t the only one aware of this little hole in the network. “What happened? You two were out of contact for nearly three minutes.” Glancing around for any little drones nearby, I slowed down enough for the other two to catch up.  
“Nice of you to ken.” I replied, more than a little impressed that she’d noticed our absence while fighting for her life. “It was a dart.” Speaking without too much of my accent and usual jargon getting in the way was a struggle and personally I didn’t like it but I didn’t want to risk there being any confusion from my end. “There was…er… were shooters on the roof, only we couldn’t see ‘em. They had some flash tech clothing that made ‘em invisible. I threw my marker stones at ‘em and The Reaper ghosted one, but the others got away.”  
“Dammit.” She didn’t sound that angry however and I knew that the dart would find its way somewhere to be analyzed. There was always someone who owed Mirage a favour or five and would be willing to keep things off the books for her.  
“It gets worse.” Story of my life really. “Right after we ghosted the one guy, a skycab showed up and some squad I ain’t never seen before dropped down, scooped up all the evidence and I think they sanitized the place. I didn’t see no insignia or nothing on them. Not even district markings on their cab.”  
She stumbled in shock and it was a good thing that I was holding onto her or she’d have fallen face first onto the floor. Catching her, I nervously eyed the next set of surveillance cameras we were coming up to. Our private time was almost over but she clearly knew something.  
“You’re sure they had no markings of any sort?” There was a strange tightness to her voice that I didn’t like even as I nodded my head cautiously.  
“Positive, I got a real good look while they were aiming their guns at my face. What’s the tell?” Alright, I was getting rather worried now. Her face looked even greyer than before and I could see the carefully veiled panic in her dark eyes.  
“Rumour has it that the Overseer has his own private black ops squad to handle matters unsuitable for the public eye.” Swallowing audibly, she continued in a much quieter voice. “From what I’ve heard, they are the most skilled, the best armed and are utterly beyond the law. They also don’t display any identifying marks so they can’t ever be tied back to the Overseer.” Several words came to mind and none of them had any place in civilized company. “Shade… Kyan…” Yeah, using my actual name wasn’t a good sign here. “Don’t talk about this to anyone. Don’t include it in your reports and if anyone asks, you didn’t see anything. The same goes for Reaper. These guys are tapped into everything and if they so much as think you’re going to reveal the truth about what you saw, we’ll all be killed.”  
I’d pretty much figured that out for myself. It seemed that even half a mile up in the sky, deep inside a shining Citadel tower at the center of the civilized world, things weren’t really any different than the lowest gutter of the Narrows. Fear, brute force and savagery were the names of the game and if you weren’t big enough to throw your weight around, you learned to hide.  
“I guess the Overseer isn’t as ready to step down as some people might think.” The elections were three months away and I began to seriously wonder if I might not live long enough to vote for the first time in my life. There was plenty of time to eliminate more political rivals or even nosy little squads who knew too much.   
“Still gonna analyze that dart?” I couldn’t resist asking and my question was greeted with a sly little smile.  
“Of course. I have a feeling that we’re going to need a little leverage of our own.” Yup…not much different from the Narrows after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed my little short story. I have several original works and will happily post them if people are interested. I love writing Kyan's point of view and the relationships he has with other people are really interesting to me. He's crazy, dangerous as all hell but not evil by it's standard definition. He's a creature of the times, shaped by a vicious and cruel world but is also still at his core just a scared little kid trying to survive.


End file.
